Over the last few days, students have been emailing the College Board to express their opposition to supplemental exam fees.
The campaign comes following a preferendum result that saw a majority of students vote against College plans to introduce fees for supplemental exams. The final result saw 34.5 per cent of voters choose option three. Option three states: “TCDSU should not support the introduction of supplemental fees but should advocate for modular billing.”
The preferendum result is not binding, but an indicator of which position Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) should adopt on the issue.
Option 2 is the Best for You, a student-led campaign, campaigned for option two in the preferendum. Option two, which states that “TCDSU should not support the introduction of supplemental exam fees, regardless of a cap or the introduction of modular billing” was the only option in the preferendum that students campaigned for.
“Whilst option two did not win the preferendum”, Beston said in an email statement to The University Times, “it is obvious with a 3,800 voter turnout and option three coming out on top, followed by option two, that students feel passionately about the issue of supplemental fees”.
Over the last few days, Beston had been calling on students to make their feelings heard by the College, ahead of a meeting of the College Board at 10am today. She’s been asking people to email Board members to express opposition to supplemental fees.
“The proposal to introduce supplemental exam fees is one that the student community has categorically rejected, and continues to reject. A huge majority of the 3,700 votes cast in the preferendum reject supplemental exam fees, and the direct grassroots action over the last couple of days is a further example of that rejection”, TCDSU President Kevin Keane said in an email statement to The University Times.
“The students have spoken and we want to make sure that they know how to get their message across”, said Beston. “Supplemental fees are exclusionary and elitist and will not be tolerated.”
