Students are not Revolting?
An article in today's Guardian Education section starts off by posing the question: "are students these days too cool for political protest or are they simply finding new ways to do it"?
The government's minister for higher education Lord David Triesman features in it as a 60's radical student leader and will probably be grateful for the coverage on those days rather than the recent coverage on political donations that has featured his name as a former Labour Party General Secretary!
How accurate was York student newspaper Nouse when it ran an article headed "Apathy: a modern form of protest?" following the flop of the top-up fees protest last year?
What the article doesn't cover is the fact that the composition of higher education students has changed from 10% of 18-21 year olds at university in the 60's to up to 43% of that age group nowadays.
It is therefore likely that student political involvement is more likely to reflect wider changes in society. Less trust and direct involvement in organisations reflect what is happening outside universities with the general public.
The article recognises the greater use of online protest such as the use of Facebook and this Blog covered the National Union of Students (NUS) led victory over the HSBC Bank on interest free overdrafts in August.
However we must also recognise that for every Facebook victory there are likely to be a proliferation of campaigns that are less successful.
Clearly there is no single solution to encouraging student political participation. What is needed is a range of engagement activity that includes active organisations, individual participation and online involvement.
The NUS is currently debating how it can improve the way it operates and last week voted to overhaul its governance arrangements to increase student participation. Encouraging student involvement is also a challenge for the government, pressure groups and political parties.
This is vital as today's student's will eventually be the David Triesman's of tomorrow!
I can't remember if I was revolting or not......it was the 60s.
Posted by:Jonathan Upton | 12 December 2007 at 10:59 AM