STEP – Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

Students’ extracurricular activities on campuses are signs of thriving learning centers. There have been student unions in our colleges and universities since independence. These elected student bodies were first banned during Zia’s regime, restored for a short interval in 1988 when PPP came into power, and then banned again a year later. The debate on whether these bodies should be allowed on campuses has been revived by the current government.

Student political groups, which are, in reality, the student wings of regional or mainstream political parties, plead vigorously in favor of student unions and it has been a common observation that these groups flourish when student unions are in place. There are a lot of people in our institutions who advocate student unions on the basis of their existence and functioning in many developed countries. Student unions in developed countries are entirely and strictly indigenous student bodies having absolutely no relationship with any national or regional political pressure groups. With such a composition, these unions serve the students of the specific institutions in which they operate. They have no plans, intentions, or functions that relate to national or regional politics.

Currently, the government is reported to have been in consultation with different concerned quarters regarding permitting students to revive student unions. While making this decision, the government should not disregard our past when student politics played havoc with the entire society. There have been innumerable events of students being engaged in violence, thefts, robbery, killing, and plundering but that wave dwindled when the erstwhile regime of Nawaz Sharif decided to banish this evil. Consequently, we have observed a comparatively peaceful environment during the last decade in our higher learning seats. If student unions are reorganized on the same previous pattern, that will positively destroy the academic environment which is still in its formative phase. The students and educational institutions are for education and research only and every attempt must be made to avoid any digression from this theme.

The proponents of student unions revival argue that these organizations help to create a healthy environment in our education institutions as these bodies act as platform of students’ extracurricular activities, which are imperative for intellectual and psychological development of our youth. That is true. However, we should not presume that extracurricular activities and student unions are interdependent. The best way to groom students intellectually through extracurricular activities in our colleges and universities is to establish different local societies in every institution with a stern proviso that these societies must not have any connection, functional or ideological, with any pressure group operating in the public space. Every institution must establish sports, debating, literary, dramatic, and music societies which can act as dynamic local platforms for grooming students. Our campuses have witnessed many splendid examples of such active platforms, for instance, there was a time when the literary society of the Government College, Lahore provided a wholesome environment for the literary and intellectual upbringing of the youth.

One major problem with student bodies in Pakistani universities is that many of these groups were formed on the basis of cast, ethnicity or religious factions. All such groups had their own axes to grind and often used violence again rival groups. Hence they should not be allowed to become a part of our campus life. Sometimes faculty groups also form on the basis of political, ethnic, and religious biases. These faculty groups also pollute the academic environment by provoking emotions of students for the sake of their personal or ideological gains. In the end, political, regional, racial, and sectarian student organizations should not be allowed on campus, and any group violating the sanctity of educational institutions must be dealt with severely, for the benefit of our future generations.

Editors Note: Dr. Tauseef Aized is a professor at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore and a research fellow at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of STEP.