In an attempt to send student engagement to an all-time low, OUSA has set their semesterly referendum questions to the most boring issues possible. There are only three engaging questions from the total ten questions provided. They are:
- “8. Should the University have the power to discipline students' for their behaviour off-campus in their own private residential flats?”
- “9. Should the government allocate Studylink entitlements (Loan Living Costs and Student Allowance) with an expectation that fulltime students will also have a part-time job to supplement this payment?”
- “10.Should OUSA lobby the University and Government for free U by Kotex Applicator Tampons for all students?”
The rest consists of obscure administrative questions.
Submissions for the questions to be asked were opened on a Friday at exactly 5pm and closed the following Monday at 5pm. This meant students were only allowed a single working day to submit on the questions that should be asked. One student, Danielle, commented: “Crazy that we only get one working day to think about this.”
Another student, Liam, was concerned that OUSA was continuing to act in bad faith in the aftermath of the Sign-Up Club SGM fiasco. He said: “Tonnes of my mates were super disappointed by OUSA at the SGM, they just don’t seem to care about the views of students at all. It's ridiculous because it is literally their job to represent us and then they do shady shit like this.”
Students will have the opportunity to vote online via the OUSA website on Tuesday 1 June. The referendum will be non-binding.
It seems the only question that was actually asked by a student was the weirdly specific question about applicator tampons. All of the others were pre-determined by OUSA bureaucrats.