Historically, the development of student movements has been heavily linked with nationalism, anti-colonialism, modernity, and the development of the welfare state (i.e. they were pro all four of those). However, as higher education has become massified around the world, students have by and large become less concerned with larger social issues, and more concerned with narrower, student-based concerns. That hasn’t always led to a loss of radicalism (viz. the carré rouge), but it’s broadly true that over time student leadership has become increasingly demure.
Arguably, this trend actually began in Canada. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and Canadian Alliance of Student Associations – both formed in the early/mid-90s – were possibly the first student groups anywhere in the world that viewed themselves as interest groups rather than “movements”. This is an important distinction: interest groups are prepared to act as insiders in order to gain benefits for their members, while movements resist working with insiders for fear of losing “purity”.
But I would argue there are a couple of other student organizations that have taken things considerably further. The first is the European Students’ Union (ESU), which is a federation of various national unions. Their focus is to lobby Brussels, which might sound like a pretty easy job since education policy is still mostly decided in individual countries (though of course our own Canadian Federation of Students [CFS] has managed to lobby Ottawa on tuition for 35 years without realizing fees are under provincial jurisdiction). But by adjusting its work to mirror the rather technocratic work done by the European Commission, the ESU has turned into one of the nerdiest and best-spoken student groups in the world.
Want proof? ESU talks intelligibly (arguably more so than some national governments) about quality assurance and the role of students in ensuring it (do take a look at their series of publications on the subject). It also has done a lot of work looking at graduate employability and how to improve it. This is really good stuff.
But the UK’s National Union of Students has perhaps gone even further in that it seems to have made a strategic decision to become partners with institutions, so as to drive improvements in student experience. It co-sponsors the National Student Survey (which is kind of a cross between NSSE and the old Globe and Mail) and the Student Engagement Partnership, which acts as a resource for institutional practitioners across the country. It creates a set of tools for individual member institutions to help students benchmark and improve teaching quality at institutions. And while I can understand people being upset that NUS has chosen to focus on this stuff rather than lead a fire-and-brimstone attack on the Tory government for fee hikes, the fact remains: this is a really impressive contribution to improving educational quality and the student experience.
Could these kinds of innovations happen here? I’d say it’s a pretty solid no on the CFS side, where this stuff would look too much like giving in to The Man. For the non-CASA schools, it’s possible, though unlikely. Organizations like OUSA and CASA are, for the moment, quite focused on lobbying government on financial issues rather than dealing with institutions. The real innovator lately has been Students NS, whose members have launched an independent governance review of… themselves. More self-centred than the UK and European initiatives, perhaps, but still a novel and welcome step to protect students’ interests.
Bon weekend.
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“Arguably, this trend actually began in Canada. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and Canadian Alliance of Student Associations – both formed in the early/mid-90s – were possibly the first student groups anywhere in the world that viewed themselves as interest groups rather than “movements”. This is an important distinction: interest groups are prepared to act as insiders in order to gain benefits for their members, while movements resist working with insiders for fear of losing “purity”.”
That is bold assumption and I would beg to differ.
If you look at for example Kunsill Studenti Universitarji (KSU in Malta 1901) or University of St Andrews Students’ Association (in Scotland 1885) you will see that they were from the start or from early point in their history, a central part of university administration and governance and so called “insiders” as well as their own organisation. Or if you look for a comparison to OUSA on a provincial level let me suggest the Shanghai Federation of Students (WHY – 上海市学联 founded 1919), that was very much part of the communist “movement” in China put has played the role of an technocratic interest group and an activity organiser since the 60s as well as continuing to be part of an ideological movement. Or one of the 15 provincial Landesstudierendenvertretung in Germany that trace their history back into the early 20th century and Weimarer Republic, playing the role of movements but also being involved in the technicalities of higher education policy in their respective Universities and Bundesländer (fun fact NAT NRW represents about the same amount of students as CFS and WHY about the same amount as CASA).
You cannot even claim the “quite on the left leaning side of movements” positioned Verband Deutscher Studentenschaften (VDS of Germany 1949 to 1990) was “pure”, sometimes electing Burschenschafter as their chair and having few restraints with working together with (or “lobbying” as you may call it) the West German federal government on improving degree recognition between different federal states (yes back in the 60s and 70s that was a issue Germany) or on other issues. I mean the OeAD (the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research) was founded 1961 by the Austrian University Rectors Conference, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and the Austrian Students´ Union (ÖH founded 1945 to present), that is some deep cooperation with no fear of losing “purity”.
I could keep on adding to this list, proving that in many places of the world, throughout the last 150 years, the notion of dividing Students´ Unions in “Movements” and “Interest Groups” simply does not apply. Probably, if I dig deep enough, I will find examples of the Canadian Union of Students (1960s) and the National Union of Students (Canada) (1972 to 1981) lobbying the Canadian Government on narrower, student-based concerns.
Don´t get me wrong, CASA, CFS, the various provincial and university students´ unions can learn from other unions around the world as one can also learn from CASA and CFS. The Canadian higher education is not an isolated island that does not need to react to developments east and west (or south). It would do good to understand how other federal states of similar size include “stakeholder” and how students´ representation there work effectively.