Prologue: Finally a blog-worthy material! Time to let the brain juice flow~
Recently, USM has been abuzz with one news that will most likely shift the whole paradigm of student politic not just within the four corners of USM campus but also all the other public higher educations institution in Malaysia.
The headline of Berita Kampus 40th Edition (Monday 18 Jan 2010): Student Parliament: Autonomy (of deciding the implementation) for USM. A momentous event indeed.
The implementation/establishment of student parliament, yet another people-led student empowerment initiative by USM, is definitely regarded as the long-awaited if not belated reform in students involvement in decision making and activism, no doubt a breathe of fresh air even for a short moment. However, behind all these seemingly great reforms belies a few doubts that needed to be made clear of. For one within the news coverage (and not just in BK but as well in The Star /1/09), aside from all the usual glorifying about the APEX initiative and student involvement and aspirations of everyone yada yada, all news sources available show some glaringly obvious grey areas: the exact details and mechanism of the actual implementation of Student Parliament are painfully scarce. The only piece of information that is closest to reveal a minute detail of the actual implementation (courtesy of the report in The Star) is that the representations will roughly follow the ratio of 5:3:2, 5 being the student representative elected during campus election, 3 being all the Desasiswa/student village residential councils representative, most likely respective chairperson and 2 being from student associations and clubs in USM, most likely the presidents and chairpersons. From this single piece of information, let’s do a little math figuring out the whole thing regarding representations in Student Parliament.
Let’s say the mode of electing student representative in the upcoming campus election remains. This means that there will be (combining general campus wide seats ans school seats) 26 seats in Minden main campus + 7 from Nibong Tebal Engineering campus and 6 from Kubang Kerian Medical Campus, bringing the total to 39 seats. Since student representative elected in campus election will constitute half of the student parliament, it means the total number of representative in the parliament will be 39x2 which is 78 members or at most 80 members. The next thing right now to see whether the representation for Residential council roughly tallies with the ratio mentioned in the bits of news report.
The student residential council will contribute 30% of the representation in student parliament which means 80x30% = 24 members. Now, there are 11 student village/desasiswa in USM (8 from main campus, 2 from engineering and 1 from medical campus) + one Non-Residential Student Council and each of them have their own residential council bringing the total to 12 res councils. This fact proves that each residential council will sent exactly 2 members (most likely the pres and the veep) of their own to be made representative in parliament, thus wielding a significant influence in the parliament.
Last but not least is the representation from campus wide student associations and clubs. Since it only occupies a measly 20%, it translates into 16 members in the parliament. The main snag here is on the actual mechanism for this slate to be filled. The fact is that there are be more than 16 clubs (if it is true that only club presidents will be chosen as the rep in parliament) in the whole USM, in fact almost a hundred club in USM so this left a big issue on how respective student associations/clubs’ interest are properly represented. Is this going to be a rotating slates between all the presidents or it is going to be a random ballot chosen most likely by the Student Affair Department or the presidents have to nominate self (even though it sounds self serving and pompous.)
Nevertheless, all of these calculation and musing will only remain as a speculation as long as there are no more credible source revealing actual details/mechanism of implementation either from official USM administration source or the people who actually involve in the process of drafting the implementation plan. The thing that I am very concerned here is that if the campus population remain in dark regarding the whole implementation of Student Parliament in USM, all the talks and hopes about giving the student more autonomy and involvement in decision making will remain only as mere talk and the systemic failure of student involvement seems imminent due to lack of exposure, lack of access to information and widespread apathy towards being activism. The student parliament will reduced to mere showcase and a venue for power-mongering few vesting personal interest. The paramount issue here in the end is definitely what’s the role of the representative will play in the parliament and decision making, the scope and limit of discussion as well as the tantanmount overall public’s anticipation and participation in the democratic process.
And indeed, my personal fear towards the lack of information towards the implementation of student parliament has been further strengthened by yet another showcase of selective release of information by those in power. Campus election is actually around the corner with the retrieval of nomination form in this week starting from Monday 18 Jan 2010 spanning for a week, next Monday 25th January will be the nomination day and finally the election day will take place on 28 January. Despite the apparent importance of it in as a university wide event for student, the dissemination of information regarding it is certainly an anti-climax, represented by merely three pieces of inconspicuous A4 black and white paper and not available at all notice board but one or two official notice board around the corner…which can be totally overshadowed by all the other larger and attractive posters and flyer by clubs and association and only those with a sharp eye will notice it. This in a way implies the lack of enthusiasm by USM administration towards the whole campus election which unfortunate will fuel the student’s already deepening apathy towards the right and responsibility to vote and participate in the whole process. So how inconspicuous that 3 pieces of paper is? See for yourself (in the case of Tekun):
And as typical of Malaysian wide campus election, those who was nominated as candidates can be roughly divided into two affiliations/factions: at one side is the the pro-establishment/university admin faction of Aspirasi, usually cropped from the selected few who has connection with the people of higher up and/or in more unflattering term, bootlickers and the other side will be the anti-establishment/university admin/Ministry of Higher Ed/AUKU/ISA/anything that is against them, Pro-Mahasiswa, a rag-tag group of disparate interest, an unharmonious alliance of the Islamist Muslim Student Association and the illegal group of SPF (which unfortunately two of my coursemate are affiliated with) but similarly known as ball-carriers of the opposition outside. My personal disdain towards these two factions is that these two factions does not representation any other significant ideologies or causes other than pro- and anti-establishment and campus election every year rapidly degenerated into power-wrestling drama between two groups of power-mongering factions with personal interest while the rest of the campus population remain apathetic and oblivious to them before being up as victim of self. Yes, obviously I am overtly critical and cynical towards the system but this had always been like this since ever. Is there any light at the end of tunnel with the introduction of student parliament in the coming election?
That’s all for now. Look forward for more updates regarding USM and everything else in my life very soon. Meanwhile, I will be going to a public talk/rally held at PALAPES field organized by Debate and Public Speaking club regarding the Student Parliament issue and the lineup of speaker was quite interesting aka those in power like MPP and PMI. I am quite anticipating it and hope I can get some answers from there.
Epilogue: It has been a while since the last time I come out with such blogpost which some intellectual content…and I am very satisfied. Keep the inspiration and idea flowing! There might be exclusive footage about the actual event very soon~~~
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