UK Students told: turn up or face expulsion

The Guardian has reported that a number of British universities have forced their students to sign legal contracts as a condition of taking courses. These contracts specify that the students will observe "good behaviour" and will regularly attend lectures and tutorials.

But the National Union of Students has condemned these contracts, calling them "one-sided," as they do not place any obligations on universities (for example, in terms of quality of teaching).

When I was enrolled in the Technical University of British Columbia (R.I.P.), we were required to sign a contract as a condition of enrollment. However, if I recall correctly, this contract merely required us not to engage in crime, academic dishonesty, etc., without imposing any specific requirements to attend lectures. British Columbia courts have ruled that there exists a contractual agreement between the student and the post-secondary institution, defined by the official literature (calendars, etc.) produced by the institution, but (TechBC aside) there haven't been any actual contracts in place in BC universities.

Does your post-secondary institution force students to sign contracts as a condition of enrollment? If so - what do these contracts contain?

Are student rights under threat in the UK?

Gemma Tumelty, President of the National Union of Students in the UK, writes in Mortar Board, the education blog of Guardian Unlimited, that students' rights to self-organise in the United Kingdom are negatively affected by the British government's indicriminate use of words like "extremism," "terrorism," and "radicalism." She writes:

"By creating an atmostphere of suspicion around innocent people, whole groups are being isolated. We will make campuses repressive rather than vibrant, polarised rather than plural. And by boxing together people under ill though-out labels we are demonising communities and fuelling the racism and Islamaphobia that our whole society should be rallying against."

Tumelty did not cite any specific plans or policies that put students' rights to self-organise in jeopardy, but seemed rather to be referring to the 'chilly climate' that students, particularly Muslim students, were facing.

This is not merely a European issue, however. FrontPageMagazine, a neo-conservative website based in the USA, has published several inflammatory articles about US Muslim students, with titles like "The Muslim Student Association: A Wahhabi Front;" "Islamic Radicals on Campus;" and "Islamism's Campus Club."

Is Peace a 'Student Issue'?

In "World Peace Forum: Unions and Peace," an article written for the lefty UBC magazine The Knoll, Steven Klein reflects on his experience attending the World Peace Forum, and asks: "What is the appropriate role of the AMS in social justice and foreign policy issues, and what lessons can UBC take from the trade union experience in organizing against war?" Klein notes that in the United States, trade unionists are facing the same internal debates that students' unions are facing: namely, whether to take positions on foreign policy issues, particularly the War in Iraq.

Students for a Democratic Society Reborn

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the left-wing American student activist organization made famous in the 1960s, has been revived. In an interview on an anarchist website, SDS organizer Patrick Korte explains that the new Students for a Democratic Society is meant to be a student-centered organization that is nonetheless open to non-students:

"Over the years, many students have been shafted in the American Left, and we believe it is necessary for students to lead their own organization and to determine the direction of their own movement without isolating themselves from the non-student Left.... The reason we chose to keep the name SDS is because it accurately describes us (we are students for a democratic society), the ideas expressed in the Port Huron Statement, the focus on participatory democracy, and the militancy and radicalism that defined the original SDS are much needed in the 21st century."

As the SDS Wikipedia article indicates, Students for a Democratic Society played a preeminent role in fostering student activism in the 1960s. Areas of concern included civil rights, the Vietnam War, free speech on university campuses, and democratizing academia. However, this organizing work largely took place outside the American student unions. Indeed, SDS didn't think much of them. The Port Huron Statement, the founding document of SDS, described student unions thusly:

"But apathy [among American university students] is not simply an attitude; it is a product of social institutions, and of the structure and organization of higher education itself. The extracurricular life is ordered according to in loco parentis theory, which ratifies the Administration as the moral guardian of the young. The accompanying "let's pretend" theory of student extracurricular affairs validates student government as a training center for those who want to spend their lives in political pretense, and discourages initiative from more articulate, honest, and sensitive students. The bounds and style of controversy are delimited before controversy begins. The university "prepares" the student for "citizenship" through perpetual rehearsals and, usually, through emasculation of what creative spirit there is in the individual." [emphasis added]

SDS had good reason for such a dim view of American student unions - to this day, many of them have little autonomy from their administrations. Consider for example, the University of Florida Student Government. Their Constitution (Article III, Section 8 (c) and (d) to be precise) specifies that any bill passed by the Student Senate may be vetoed by the Student Body President or by the President of the University! Talk about student power....

Canadian student unions may be more autonomous of their institutions, but they are nonetheless quite distinct from groups such as Students for a Democratic Society. A student union's membership consists of all students, regardless of political affiliation, whereas student activist groups such as SDS are controlled solely by those who agree with 'the cause.' A student union executive that sees itself as a kind of vanguard will eventually find itself replaced - witness the victory of "Evolution, Not Revolution" in the 2003 Concordia Students' Union elections following a year of radicalism.

(Hat tip: Caelie Frampton)

Voluntary Student Unionism Begins in Australia

A federal law that bans universal membership in student unions - the "Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005" - is now (as of July 1) in force throughout Australia. As the law's Explanatory Memorandum explains, this law goes far beyond merely banning universal student unionism:

"The Bill will make student unionism a voluntary activity in higher education institutions.

"The Bill will amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003, to prohibit all higher education providers (public and private) from:

· requiring a person to become a member of a student association (union or guild)

· requiring a student to pay fees for non-academic student services"

Thus, ancillary fees charged for institution-provided services such as health services, support for student clubs, or athletics, are banned. Further motivation can be found in this press release issued by the Minister for Education, Science, and Training.

The organisation primarily responsible for the passage of this Act is the Australian Liberal Students' Federation (ALSF). Students aligned with the ALSF has happily participated in NUS (National Union of Students of Australia) meetings even while hoping for its demise. According to the ALSF's Wikipedia article, "No other faction carries the notoriety attached to the ALSF at NUS National Conference. ALSF does not recognise the Aboriginal welcome preceding the NUS conference, thus have sung 'God Save the Queen' throughout the welcome for the past three years." This can be confirmed by reading the online Minutes of NUS National Conference 2004, which record the Chair "call[ing] the Liberals to order" and ruling "that the Liberal caucus not sing on conference floor" during the Indigenous Welcome to Country. (The remainder of the Minutes are similarly full of hillarity; indeed, they are one of the most amusing set of minutes I have ever read!)

Other organisations were not as impressed. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), representing faculty, as come out strongly against Voluntary Student Unionism, producing a host of documentation supporting their stance. So has the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (AVCC), representing university administrations. Even the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) expressed concern at the estimated AUS$100 million loss to collegiate athletics. On the political side, the Australian Democrats expressed their opposition to such legislation. The opposition Labor Party tried (unsuccessfully) to split the bill into two portions - one banning universal membership in students' unions, and another banning compulsory fees for non-academic services, expressing their support for student services but opposing universal student union membership.

News on this issue:

• 'Voluntary student unionism' law takes effect (Green Left weekly)
• Grim future predicted for student association (ABC North Queensland)
• Union services scaled back as VSU takes effect (The World Today, ABC)
• Anti-union law costs jobs, help on campus (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Union a closed shop as funds dry up (The Australian)

Could it happen in Canada?

If so, the initiator of similar legislation might be Harry Bloy, BC MLA for Burquitlam. In a Private Member's Statement, Mr. Bloy lamented that BC students "have to pay third-party fees to such organizations as the Canadian Federation of Students, CFS for short, and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations." Expressing concern about students' welfare, Mr. Bloy suggested that "some students might feel better if their money were spent elsewhere." The valiant, eloquent response from the opposition NDP? "I'm afraid I just find it really difficult to find any passion to respond to what has been said."

Gemma Tumelty Elected President of National Union of Students of the United Kingdom

So in case you thought Canadian student politics was too factionalized...

In the United Kingdom, the National Union of Students is so influential that the Guardian publishes a series of articles on their recent elections. For 2006, there were seven candidates for President of NUS UK, three running with slates and four running indepentently. Of these, a few were running purely as protest candidates, such as the Marxist Daniel Randall or the young Conservative Dan Large. But two candidates stood out from the crowd: Pav Akhtar and Gemma Tumelty.

Gemma Tumelty, outgoing National Secretary of NUS, ran with the support of the oxymoronic student group "Organised Independents." The Organised Independents (OIs) are a centrist faction that operate within the National Union of Students. In the past they operated in cooperation with Labour Students, the youth wing of the Labour Party that also runs candidates in NUS elections. This is not surprising, given the fact that many OIs are, in fact, members of the Labour Party themselves (though not officially supported in NUS elections).

Pav Akhtar, outgoing Black Students' Officer of NUS, ran as an independent. You can have a look at his election platform by checking out his campaign website (yes, NUS candidates have websites...). He was generally considered to be the more left-wing of the two main candidates. According to this blog, Mr. Akhtar ran with the support of the Student Broad Left.

In the end, Gemma Tumelty was elected President. For more information on the election, which has been extensively covered in both the national and student media, check out these articles/posts:

• Adding their voice to the debate: Has better organisation or extremism made Islamic groups the biggest faction in student politics? (The Guardian)
• They might have won the battle: Gemma Tumelty, the new NUS president, is determined to turn the union around and keep up the fight against fees, she tells Alexandra Smith (The Guardian)
• Leader's Time-Wasting Tactics (Socialist Students faction)
• Mayor of London accused of interfering in NUS elections
• Jo Salmon's post on the next NUS President
  
• NUS Conference (perspective from a Conservative delegate)

Now, all this raises the obvious question: why aren't we seeing anywhere near the same open debate concerning the direction of Canada's student political groupings? Whether it's CFS or CASA, one gets the distinct impression that this sort of democracy in action simply doesn't happen here in Canada.