Hi, I’m Esohe and I am your Education Officer. I am one of the four full time sabbatical officers.
I was elected to represent your academic interests, which means I lead on improving the teaching and learning happening at LSE. My role is very behind the scenes and is often about changing and creating policies. This involves a huge number of things, from sitting on over twenty committees and working groups that decide things such as LSE’s education strategy, to allocating funding to departments on the basis of how much this will improve your education.
- What I’ve been up to
Supporting LSE in their plans for the year
This has involved looking at the academic year to improve it for students (e.g. January exams and reading weeks), reviewing undergraduate degrees to ensure they make disciplinary sense and are less dependent on exams, and the development of a new Student Hub. The hub is an app for students where they can do things like access their timetable and book office hours.
Transition Scheme
I’ve been looking at how to improve the transition of students into their first year of university. Some of the things that will be in place are orientations for students who live at home, mature and part time students and international students. I’m also looking at other pre-university ways of making the transition easier, such a online Q&A’s and degree specific peer mentors.
International Students
This year I am developing and implementing an international students’ strategy. This is to address issues such as the international attainment gap and the disproportionate number of international students that are accused of academic misconduct.
SSLC/Course Reps
LSE has committed to running the course rep system in partnership with LSESU. What this means for students is that the issues that are being raised at a departmental level will better feed up through LSE’s committee system and representatives will be more visible, leading to your academic interests being better represented at every level of LSE’s committee system.
Academic standards
There has been enthusiasm and initial commitments on things to do with feedback for all students and minimum standards for teaching, with the aim of ensuring consistency between departments. The rest of the year will be spent working with LSE to ensure that these are being implemented.
Postgraduate Students
I was part of the team that helped to map and review the course choice system for undergraduate and postgraduates. There are long term plans to harmonise the system at all levels of study. My focus for the rest of the year will be on how information on dissertations are disseminated and how to improve that.
Consent
Last year a motion passed mandating LSESU to implement compulsory consent workshops. As part of this, I have been working as part of the ‘Consent Team’ on such things as creating scenarios for the ‘Where Do You Stand?’ workshops that have been taking place and reviewing LSE’s policies on sexual harassment and making suggestions.
Black History Month
I was responsible for organising Black History Month. Some of the events were a black history walking tour of London and a talk entitled ‘Medical Apartheid: European experiments on black bodies’. It was a massive success and I got to work with some amazing societies in the process such as ACS, and invite in incredible speakers such as Karen Blackett OBE.
If you have any issues you want to raise about your education, I run drop in sessions every Tuesday from 12.30 to 2.30pm on the 3rd floor of the Saw Swee Hock, or email me on su.education@lse.ac.uk.
