By one of those ironies that sprinkle salt on the wounds of history, university students in Denmark are currently collecting signatures to safeguard their democratic say in universities. Since the 1960s, they have been able to send representatives to sit with representatives from other branches of the university — faculty, management, administration — and help decide the sort of courses offered. Now, politicians and university managers want to curtail the role of these student representatives.
The irony is that I am writing this in May 2018, and the student rights we are talking of largely rose out of the movement of May 1968.
May 1968 is associated with civil unrest in France. It was a period of massive general strikes as well as the occupation of universities by students, and factories by workers. For 15 days, it brought France to a halt, forcing President Charles de Gaulle, whose use of police force against the agitators had worsened the situation, to flee the country for almost half a day.
Beginning of a student protest
Starting as a student protest against (mostly American) imperialism, capitalism, and traditional institutions associated with patriarchy (of which de Gaulle was considered a symbol), the movement spread to factories with strikes involving 12 million workers. Most historians claim that there was not much political significance achieved in the end, except in terms of a recognition of some grievances and increased student participation in universities. When de Gaulle returned and announced new parliamentary elections, the protests evaporated. He returned to power with a stronger majority.
But May 1968 was not just a French political movement; it was also the beginning of a pan-European student protest, with global resonances (including in India), that significantly strengthened the democratic participation of students in universities. Students in Copenhagen University in Denmark organised a lockout that month; it helped Danish students get a say in running their universities. Now student participation in universities all over the world is being methodically dismantled.
This might sound like a good thing to many Indians, for we are used to university politics of much violence and little relevance to education. Student politics in India has been hijacked by mainstream political parties, so that student organisations not only have affiliations with major political parties, they also cater to the agendas of these parties. In that sense, university politics in many Indian universities is not always representative — it does not represent the educational concerns of students but of external and larger political parties.
This is largely not the case in Danish, German, French or U.K. universities. Student representatives mostly do not use university politics to step into the state or national political arena; they are there to represent the university concerns of students. But this is being systematically dismantled now.
There has always been an argument against excessive student say in what universities offer. After all, students are not in the best position to judge what they ought to learn, it has been pointed out. Some things, which students might find boring or difficult, have to be taught anyway. These arguments seem justified — and might be so in some contexts — but they are often misleading. More so today, when the claims of the ‘market’ are being used to restructure courses and fields in universities around the world. The very politicians who do not want students to have a say, ‘for they know not what they do’, are the politicians who want the market to decide what universities offer and do. This is disingenuous. What is this ‘market’, and in what sense does it ‘know’ better?
Students and the market
Having been a teacher for two decades, I have occasionally had problems with the tendency of universities to please students by offering them softer courses and exam options. But this trend usually does not come from students. It comes from politicians and administrators who privilege only the market: they value the shortest and easiest route by which a student can finish his or her education and join the market.
Students, on the other hand, mostly want to learn more and well. However, they are induced by these very ‘market-oriented’ administrators and politicians to learn as little as possible and as fast as possible, and cut as many corners as possible in the process. They learn to play the game: Get a quick degree, preferably via a student loan, and a job to pay it off for the next 20 years.
It is in this light that one needs to look back upon 1968. It was a period in which students stopped being considered empty vessels to be filled with whatever the status quo wanted; they came to have a say in what they wanted to become, and how. One can claim that truly modern universities became possible only from 1968. The curtailing of student participation in universities is not going to increase the level of education or enable a greater pursuit of knowledge. It will turn universities from modern, progressive and democratic institutions into workshops, at best polytechnics.
