Jan
19
What is the first thing comes into your mind when you hear the word “students’ unions”? Protests, strikes, conflicts…? Have you ever heard of something other than that?
Actually students’ unions do lot more work but the media reports only the protests, strikes etc. So, I thought of writing some work done by our union. “Arunella” is one such annual program which consists of scholarship program, O/L seminar program and social projects. You can read about this on http://yasaruwan.gunathilake.com/arunella/.
Please don’t forget to say what you think because that’s very important for all the students of our faculty. Also I’d like to know what you do you expect and what you don’t expect from a students’ union?
6 Comments to "What do you expect from a students’ union?"
Please share your thoughts
Filed in: University, My Life
www.uwsu.com
“Protests, strikes, conflicts…? Have you ever heard of something other than that?”
I have to admit that our unions both the,
MFSU(Medical Faculty Students Union)
MSWS(Medical students Welfare Society)
Do a tremendous bit of work for us 0.5 docs.
Welfare- Schols, Donations, Photocopy and bookshop service, Cultural Events and much more are organised by our bodies.
It is the MFSU thats organising the MedEx 2008 too.
Apart from this the union is actively involved in issues regarding our medical students. And we have either won or arrived at agreeable compromises on all of these
We have never (since 1990) had to be involved in strikes that damaged our academic work in any way.
And in every peaceful demonstration that the Unions organised we had the full backing and cooperation of the teaching faculty. Because the Unions went to them first and got advice about the plan of action.
Our unions are separate from the National parties it has been so from the 1980s. I believe that is why our unions are so successful and why they have the full student backing!
I’m a 02 efac grad. Probably you wouldn’t know me cos for obvious and non-obvious reasons. . Well, I was in the university for four years and I know inside and out of what Unions do. Honestly, things like Arunella are commendable. But some things that Union involves in are very lame. Ragging is one thing. I don’t know to what extent efac union has its hand exerted to the Jennings case, though the news outside uni is that efac union has more to do with it. It’s a real shame. Guys in the fac don’t really see the real persepctive of the things they do, but people who are outside do. About your side e04pera.com, well…Good luck, but I’ll tell you one thing with my rich experience on similar sites (i.e. non profitable, closed community based sites)….They don’t last long. You put up the site cos u had a strong motive. Trust me forlks, and remember this well…This motive dies off with time, sooner than you think. You plan initially to update the site regularly and keep it alive, but trust me…It’ll hardly work. It’s the usual fate of the sites of this calibre. A mailgroup is more ideal. Goodluck again…Maybe I’ll write you more if I stumble upon this one. Btw, I tried to get registered to your site, but apparently your admin has to approve me. Since I said some of the things I wanted to tell u there, pls ignore my registration.
Half Doctor, I also believe your opinion that the student backing are because of we don’t have any political backing. Good luck for all your work.
Asanka, thanks for your ideas. You may be correct about our batch site. But we’ve seen some very good sites from our pass out batches, specially from Tamils. That’s why we thought of having a site for us too.
yeap bro…And did u notice that there is a dedicated site with registered top level domain for nearly all batches? And did u ever wonder why they keep the site always updated with all the recent news about the batchmates? Even the name of a newly born baby of a batchmate? As I said before, if you’re running with the initial motive, you will die away soon. But the thing with these tamil websites is that it’s not the initial motive that runs them; it s a hope - hope of Tamil Eelam. Few years back, when I noticed these flock of sites, which are inter-connected, I wondered why would they do such a thing. Cos as sinhalese we wouldnt do it. But then it became apparaent that it’s the Eelam. They want to know where their batchmates are, what they’ve been doing, etc at any given time. So that when the Eelam calls up to them, they know whom to contact and how to contact. It all runs in the background folks, hindered from the outside.
Asanka you are telling that the students’ unions are involve with ragging. I am totally disagree with that. Because, u can tell it very easily but can’t prove it!.
The other thing is you have to notice that there are active Sinhalese batch sites and very few. This is because they are special. I think we are special in all ways and hope to be a batch forever…