Editorial
Reforming student politics
A pressing agenda that must be squarely addressed
A roundtable conference on the degenerate state of student politics and the need for regaining the glory once associated with such politics, organised by this newspaper on Saturday, threw up a number of insightful recommendations that merit serious consideration by way of reform priorities. At the outset it was made clear that doing away with student politics is not an option. What is needed is to reform it in a comprehensive fashion so as to create conditions for the restoration of its old glories.
The sad truth for us today is that the idealism and sense of ideology which once characterised student politics is now only a memory. In its place has emerged a sinister shadow of what student politics used to be. The integrity and sense of commitment which underscored the role of students in the past has now been supplanted by a degeneration that leaves the nation bewildered. Images of student violence over the years have aroused grave concern among citizens. This, in essence, was what emerged from the round table which brought stakeholders in national politics -- general students, student leaders, politicians, media people -- together on Saturday. The conclusions drawn from the conference, we believe, ought to give everyone, from the highest levels of the state to the lowest, a pause.
And what are those conclusions? Most fundamental is the crucial role the political parties must play if student politics is to recover its old sense of purpose. The criminalisation and confrontation today underpinning national politics have naturally impacted on student politics. In short, no matter how much of an outcry there is about today's degenerate student politics, unless the political parties are bold enough to delink themselves from student organisations, we cannot expect much of a change in student politics. As we await such untangling, we expect more such steps to follow in the shape of elections to student bodies as well as the inner councils of the student organizations. This is important since in the absence of a representative body of students, both in the students' union and in student organizations, it is the party which takes over and hand-picked elements rise to the top.
It must be made clear, however, that elections by themselves to the student bodies will not solve problems unless the two pre-eminent figures in national politics, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, simultaneously proclaim that student politics as it is being played out today must be discarded. They must assure the nation that student organisations will no more serve as adjuncts to national political parties and that student politics will be based on the standards followed by student organisations in the outside world. It is for our politicians and indeed everyone else to bear in mind that the dark nature of student politics today is a positive risk not only to academia but to the overall democratic process. It is ironic that where our students have played hugely constructive and unified roles in opposing military or autocratic rule, they go their separate ways in times of democratic governments.
A drastic change in student politics is thus in order. The political parties may feel enthused about the strength or campus dominance of their student followers. But that attitude must be eschewed and replaced by the urgent necessity of creating a knowledge-based society through having a reservoir of expertise and academic excellence at the institutions of higher learning. Our students, our youths must be transformed into credible, strong mechanisms geared to national development.
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