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Student Politics and Representation in Higher Education: A Global Perspective

Student organizations are common in universities, but their involvement in decisions varies. National associations are rare in public policy. Regional associations and the Global Student Forum are strengthening student voices in international education policy.

Published onSep 15, 2024
Student Politics and Representation in Higher Education: A Global Perspective
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Student organizations exist at most universities and colleges in the world, but their involvement in institutional decision making varies significantly. In national public policy making, national student associations are much less common. A more recent development is strengthened student voice in education policy processes in international organizations and intergovernmental policy processes. This development is a result of advocacy of powerful regional student associations, and their newly established Global Student Forum.


Student Representation at Universities and Colleges

Organizations representing students exist at most universities and colleges in the world, but their involvement in institutional decision making varies significantly: from no involvement to need-based consultation to at least a third of all members in academic senates. Most common share of votes that students have in academic senates is 15 to 25 percent. In the Czech Republic, at least one-third of the senate members and one-half of the whole plenum must be students. In countries that gained independence and democratized in the late twentieth century, students were a key political force in overturning the regimes, and were granted representation in higher education governance as part of setting up democratic institutions. In nondemocratic countries, student organizations exist, too, but their institutional autonomy is questionable, and their involvement in institutional governance is at best limited to consultations. For example, in Oman, student advisory councils that were introduced after the Arab Spring have no formal authority in institutional decision processes and no national-level student association exists. In Chinese higher education institutions, there are effectively two coexisting types of student organizations: student unions which represent students in university governing bodies, and student associations organized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with the latter holding significantly more influence. In private institutions, student governments provide student services, organize extracurricular activities, and may be consulted in decision processes at the discretion of institutional leaders.

Student Representation in National Public Policy Processes

In national public policy processes, national student associations are much less common than at universities and colleges. In European countries, student involvement in public policy processes is well established, and often one national student union holds a monopoly of representing student interests. Most national unions in Western Europe have a long tradition of existence, from the early twentieth century on. In former colonies, the establishment of national unions followed national independence and was part of establishing democratic institutions. A pluralist model of national student representation also exists with several student organizations competing for influence in national public policy processes, as in Italy or in the statist French system, where political party-affiliated student unions compete in student elections for seats in two governmental councils that effectively institutionalize student representation vis-à-vis the state. Most countries in Southeast Asia have no recognized national student associations, with notable exceptions, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Pakistan is a country which outlawed student unions, though they do exist informally and have explicit links to political parties. National-level representation is generally less likely to exist in nondemocratic countries. Governments fear the political potency of organized student movements, which, as history has shown, helped overturn regimes in many parts of the world.

Student Representation in International Organizations and Intergovernmental Processes

More recent developments in the twenty-first century include the strengthening of student voice in regional international organizations and intergovernmental processes, such as in the African Union, the Commonwealth, the European Higher Education Area, and within the United Nations. These developments follow an ideological turn in global higher education policy that now considers students not merely passive beneficiaries of education but as actors with agency over their own learning and political agency as partners vis-à-vis governments, educational leaders, and other stakeholders in transforming education.

In 2022, the United Nation’s Transforming Education Summit unprecedentedly affirmed young people’s and students’ role as partners in education policy and decision-making. The Youth Declaration on Transforming Education issued as part of the Summit unequivocally expresses demand by young people for “decision-makers to engage with youth in all our diversity, including elected student representatives, in a meaningful, effective, diverse, and safe manner in the design, implementation, execution, monitoring, and evaluation of the process to transform education,” and for “decision-makers to promote and invest in youth and student leadership and support systems for representation.” One tangible follow-up is that UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report will add a new benchmark indicator on youth and student participation in education policy making as part of measuring progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4: stocktaking of transformative actions in education.

The strongest advocates for involving students as partners in higher education decision-making have been student organizations, especially regional student associations, such as the All-Africa Students Union (AASU), the European Students’ Union (ESU), the Commonwealth Students’ Association (CSA), and the Latin American and Caribbean Student Organization (OCLAE). In 2020, these regional organizations established the Global Student Forum (GSF). GSF serves as a global union of student organizations representing their interests in global policy processes. It is also an important platform for student organizations’ capacity-building through sharing of practices and collaboration. GSF was an important player in the United Nations’ Transforming Education Summit and is involved in UNESCO’s youth engagement structures. Regional associations are involved in key education policy initiatives, such as ESU and AASU involvement in developing regional quality assurance frameworks for higher education. Only OCLAE continues to operate more as a movement rather than an interest group, and tends to have more adversarial relationships with public authorities in the region.

Conclusion

If we accept E.E. Schattschneider’s 1935 insightful suggestion that “new policies create a new politics,” then the United Nations Youth Declaration on Transforming Education can be highly consequential for the political organization, political identities, and political strategies of students as collective political actors in education governance and policy making. It remains a question, however, to what extent students will manage to capitalize on this United Nations’ declaration in countries where student representation is only tokenistic or in countries with significant barriers to democratic student representation. Antagonistic relations between students and the governments persist in many countries in the world as ongoing student protests demonstrate. Tensions between students and governments have been aggravated by the introduction of neoliberal education policies, including decreasing public investment into higher education, lack of social support to students, and increasing tuition fees.

The shift from democratic elements in university governance to more corporate characteristics also had an impact on student representation. These reforms diminished the authority of academic senates, where students tend to be represented, and increased the powers of university boards, where students typically do not have a vote. Yet, the emerging global narrative of student agency in higher education and students as partners in transforming education warrants students a role in education decision-making, even if the democratic ideals of education governance diminish. Students increasingly take roles as consultants, participate in various aspects of quality assurance, or get university jobs to provide student services. These roles, too, grant students influence on affairs of their universities and colleges but it is a substantially different kind of influence than real democratic representation.


Manja Klemenčič is a senior researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and associate at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, United States. E-mail: [email protected].

This article is based on Klemenčič, M. (2024) (Ed.). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Student Politics and Representation in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury Academic (open access). https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781350376007

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