Being the General Secretary of The University of Manchester Students' Union is one of the most challenging Jobs due to students’ population, diversity in demographics, views and strong pressure from the political side of things. Though it’s been challenging it has also been a wonderful learning process as an aspiring global leader. Student politics in the United Kingdom indeed should never be underestimated. It requires guts, tough skin, focus and a purpose to maintain a good fortitude to pursue an agenda that benefits the larger student body. It is sometimes easy to forget that you were elected to lead and focus on solve students’ problems rather than using the position to pursue your personal interest for self-gratification. I am still learning how to be a good student politician with high integrity in the United Kingdom.

Below are some of the achievements/changes I have been able to champion so far at:

I negotiated an agreement with the university accommodation service which ensured that students with 51-week tenancy agreement could secure their ensuing year's accommodation by dovetailing their new contract with the existing contract. This was due to the non-existence of a 52-week tenancy contract and the challenge it presented to students willing to stay for another year in the same university hall of residence.

Led the Exec team in negotiating a joint agreement with the University which protected students' from being denied assignments/exam assessment, graduation and academic progression during the national University College Unions' strike action.

Convinced the School of Environment Education and Development (SEED) to lift the cap on the number of students that can register for a particular module. This has led to students pursuing modules that aligns with their passion. I will be meeting with the teaching and learning leads at the Faculty of Humanities to ensure this becomes a faculty-wide decision.

Negotiated and gained the university's commitment to install a braille printer in one of our libraries for the benefit of our visually impaired students. They also agreed to my proposal for disabled students to arrive ahead of actual school reopening dates for custom training on how to use their respective learning aids to enhance their student experience. I also secured an agreement with the accommodation office to ensure that disabled students arriving ahead of time, had their accommodation sorted.

Led my team in negotiation with the university which led to them bringing forward by a year, its socially responsible investment policy review, as a response to People's and Planet students’ occupation of the John Owens building.

Initiated, planned and executed the organisation of five events with the International students' officer, under the global week celebrations which saw a hundreds of students participating and boosting their culture intelligence on various countries/cultures through film screenings, Myth-busting night, Fashion show, Food Show and a festival of music and dance.

Negotiated with the university on inclusion, which ensured that the Postgraduate Officer was a permanent member of the university's teaching and learning related groups, committees and meetings so that postgraduate students' issues could at-least be heard every week.

Negotiated for student representation on the University's History & Heritage Strategy Group, which gives students the right-of-say in its strategic and resource decisions.

Introduced the action progress tracking sheet, which ensured that progress on actions assigned to elected officers and staff at each of our strategic meetings within the SU and with the University were easily monitored by current and future executives/staffs.

Amplified students voice on global & social issues via my weekly radio talk show on FuseFM called "Gensec On Radio Show". We have done nine shows so far with podcast available at https://www.facebook.com/GenSecOnRadio/ as reference.

Was also appointed as the Head Judge for the Outstanding Student Volunteering category and Second Judge for the Social Enterprise category of the Faculty of Science and Engineering Social Responsibility Awards 2019/20 academic year.

Collaborated with the Part-time international students’ officers and community officer for Whitworth and Rusholme in organising a winter networking and socialization party for students during the end of 2019.

I am currently working on:

The execution of the UoM Olympics project, the first-ever sports festival that will be organised to reinforce integration, community cohesion, improvement of students’ health and mental wellbeing.

The Development of the Project Lab Website, which will allow organisations around the world to convert their challenges into projects for current students to work on to enhance their employability before they complete school. We are done with the branding aspect of this project.

Working with Hays PLC towards the organisation of two career fairs (The first fair would be towards students gaining temporary jobs while in school and the second fair would be for international final year and postgraduate students in gaining White Collar Jobs after dissertation submission before their visa expires.

In the spirit of "Prevention is better than cure" I am working with Campus life in the Organisation of a University-Wide health awareness week in May 2020.

Working with the University on the development of a Masterclass on Academy Literacy for staff development towards the university's internationalisation agenda.

Working with the university’s Director of Hospitality to create a common agreement with external venue providers to ensure that all our student societies and groups can have a good deal and will be well protected in their dealings with these venues.

Working earnestly as a member of the executive board of the university's New institute of teaching and learning to ensure that the whole concept of teaching, learning, assessment, etc. are made fit for purpose.

Notes

In the spirit of the campaign against the "marketisation of the UK educational system" and "systemic stereotypes", I strive to continuously ensure that I alert the university on the need for nuances in their communications for clarity and to not raise the expectations, excitement and sometimes downplay the efforts and achievements of various students’ groups. One of these were "The University of Manchester being named as the most targeted university by UK recruiters”. Even though this is great and positive, it lacked nuances as it didn’t highlight how this achievement was towards home students’ and excluded International students. This was crucial for me to raise as it could be used to attract international students when in actual fact, they would not necessarily benefit from this statement.

Secondly are the communications on the attainment gap. Currently issues around attainment gap is focused on the schism between academic achievements of ethnic groups of home students. This nuance is not made clear and hence it hides the academic achievements of say international students (who may be black, Asian, etc. and it also entrenches the idea of non-white students always needing to catch up and not being good enough as compared to their counterparts