Student Representation “Rather Ridiculous”

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31654, 15 April 1968, Page 11

Student Representation “Rather Ridiculous”

Student representation on governing bodies of higher institutions as distinct from proper consultation is “rather ridiculous,” according to a leading article in “The Times” educational supplement on January 26, 1968. “It wastes time and affects the conduct of business to no purpose,” said the article.

“The demands beginning to be heard for student) to sit beside their teachers on boards of studies should be strongly resisted,” says “The Times” article. “What sound opinions can they have on matters which they have gone to universities to learn?” Students had every right to assert themselves and the uni-

verities had as much right and more reason to be firm, the article says. (The University of Canterbury last month decided to restore one student seat on the University Council and allow four on a new students’ liaison committee in addition to existing representation on the professorial Board’s committees on discipline and on educational policy.) “Excuses, of course exist for the assertiveness of students today,” says “The Times” article. “It is no longer entirely true to say that students have gone to university of their own choice and so should accept its governance. For some years one public line has been that students go to universities because the nation needs them to be there —to Increase reserves of qualified manpower and so on. “This leads students to argue quite reasonably that, as they are doing the nation

a service, they have every right to lay down their own conditions. In this light their grant becomes their wages and they organise themselves like other working men. “The best way to eradicate this misconception is to have It robustly proclaimed that the nation does not care whether they are at university or not,” says the article. “This certainly applies to almost all the arts students and a solid slice of the pure scientists. The proof is easy because we are still at a fortunate moment in our history when, casting our eyes round reveals at the top and in control of some of our greatest national enterprises men who never tasted the benefits that higher education can bestow. “As no-one who has watched these men at work can say for certain where a university education might have improved their performance (except by reducing it in other respects) we have not yet had enough wool pulled round our eyes to regard university education for someone who can get three A levels as a national duty he must fulfil.” The article says it is to be hoped that students will “abide by the rules of the game they have elected to play and not seek to reorganise the Institutions they have chosen as their temporary hosts into clubs of their own.”