Student Unions

Student unions play an important role to teach the things that students cannot learn in the class room. Leadership, communication, understanding the power of organizing and many other lessons can be best learnt at Student unions. The students with a vision always do something being a responsible or part of the unions that people after them remember them. University students have so much power, energy and influence that they can change the situation in a country. That is why it is important to understand how they work in a country.

My personal experience with student organizations or unions has been different in different situations. I remember the time when I joined NED University at Karachi. The life in student hostel was dominated by some political and non-political organizations. However they were not so much strong in the campus. As a resident many of the people were forced to be a part of these organizations based on their educational and cultural backgrounds. When I got a room in the hostel I found out that I have got to be a part of it. It was partially forced and partially my own decision to become a part of Punjabi Students Association (PSA). I and a few of my friends decided to get an apartment in the city and leave hostel to get rid of PSA. But later on we thought that it is fine to stay and become a part of it.

Since 1999 student unions were banned in Pakistan. Therefore these organizations were kind of not allowed in the university. But they survived somehow. University’s administration could not do much about them. Most of organizations were influenced by political parties and they used to bring the political fights from out of the university to the inside. And the rest of them were using the student power for getting some favors from administration and academic staff to get better grades, fake attendances, and getting books from book banks and avoiding lines during the exam periods. Negative side of these organizations was the meaningless fights against each other. There were both good and influence in the organizations but in case of some fight the organization had to support the bad influence due to the identity. During all these years I have seen the expectations of students were never positive from these organizations. They all used to think that they are all here for the trouble and wasting time. Therefore the members of these student organizations were not that much as compared to the population of the university. I was optimistic about the future of student unions, but even after a lot of efforts I could not change the general image of the student organizations. The expectations were still negative when I graduated.

Besides these students groups there were some clubs or groups run by university’s administration. They were strictly controlled and students were not able to do much about them. Some of them did not even have an organizational structure or proper memberships and activities. I tried some of them for example Literary and publication society and green society. Green society was just doing one tree plantation once a year where they used to invite vice chancellor and some deans. I had two certificates for attending them for 15-20 minutes in the whole year. Some other students groups were also there without any memberships or official system. They were just for fun. Examples were Anti-Dating society, civil outlaws, and people from social networks. I used to use ‘Uqaabi Nigahain’ as my nick on the virtual network of NED University. And yes they had a society for girls as well. This society used to arrange a Pakistan tour for ladies.

On the other hand when I came to Sweden, the membership of student unions was mandatory. They had all the support they needed. But the sad part was that the student unions in Sweden are only for Swedish students. Since the international students were not in big number at the university therefore they did not have any representation in the unions. The introduction events were carried out by the office of international relations. They had a lot of activities and all these activities made them integrated with each other than Swedish students. They provided all the necessary information that was required. After 2 years when I had enough Swedish friends I have found that majority of them was not active in Student union as well. In introduction everyone become a part of some groups and then they hang out most of the time in those groups. However there was similar story in case of international students. There was one international students union that was taken over by Erasmus student network. There were a few people who were involved in all of the activities, not a majority from international students was active in ESN. But some of the parties had a lot of participants.

When I joined Chalmers university, it was different and role of the student union was way too much visible than the student union of boras. Perhaps they had a bigger number of students and university’s administration also supports it. In 2011 Swedish government removed the law of mandatory membership of the student unions however Chalmers University still kept the old rules. It is still mandatory to be a part of it. The student unions in Chalmers have a Chalmers international student reception committee. That is responsible for welcoming the international students in the Chalmers. In Chalmers there were also many other organizations and I do not even know all of them. Examples are Board of European students of Technology, Erasmus student network, AISEC, Amnesty international, Charm (they organize a huge job fair every year) and every department had its own sections. The students were also free to make their own student organizations under the student unions. One of these groups were ‘Reflecting Engineers’ I liked them very much. But there were still so many groups that I don’t even know about.  Since I was working and studying therefore I could not get into the systems of the unions. However the student union of Chalmers University was ranked as number 1 in the whole Europe by the students.

Student Union owns a big building with a lot of seminar rooms, sports gymnasium, swimming pool, sauna, cafes and restaurant. Their budget was quite big and they were trying to engage students in a lot of activities. Every week I used to get an email from my section about the social activities, some seminars and other stuff. But I could not join any of them. Anyways the people involved in them were learning a lot. There were also some other events organized like a construction competition, bike sales, midsummer celebrations, concerts, some proms etc etc.

Norway is one of the perfect examples of student society and unions. Or maybe it is just the Trondheim. Student Union of Trondheim is a really big organization with a lot of member and volunteers working in it. I am not sure if I still understand it all. But I have some idea how it works. The other great thing about Trondheim is that majority of the students are part of something. Some group, sports team, a society in their departments or some international community or activities. Most of the organizations are made and run by the students themselves. The impressive network of big sports facilities, housing, cafés and restaurants were made and being run by student groups. Students are also active in the university’s politics. One student can work in Student union for four semesters. The alumni also stay involved in the union even after their graduation. Student union of Trondheim engages students throughout the semester by different activities. A lot of concerts, talk shows, quizzes, movie nights, dance shows and many other activities are happening in the house throughout the year.

Besides this stuff the union arranges the biggest cultural festival of Norway every second year. Almost 90,000 tickets were sold this year. I was a part of this year’s festival. This festival is called UKA and it has completed 100 years. I heard it all the times during my orientation that it is not difficult to integrate in Norwegian society; you just have to get involved. And for getting involved there are so many opportunities according to your interests. One of the criticisms in internationals student circle is that the way Norwegians are involved in these groups is very intensive. The people in sports team spend most of their time there; the ones working in the student union building spend most of their time there. Most of the groups are closed for socializing. If you are not part of some group, you are not welcome.

It has been a really long story; I still have a lot to write about. But I think that I written enough to give an idea how student unions are working in Pakistan, Sweden and Norway. Please provide me your feedback or comments or correct me if I am writing something wrong.