Reader’s opinion|The statutory task of the Student Union is to promote social endeavors related to the student’s status and studies.
Henriina Rantala called (HS Opinion 20.9.) automatic membership of student unions as “a system that has lived up to its time”. If you want to claim that the student union has lived up to its time, you should justify the claim.
The autonomous university is one of the oldest institutions in our society. Everything that is old is not necessarily outdated. The current membership of student unions also does not violate the basic rights of students, as Rantala hinted, but the membership has been found to be in accordance with the constitution several times both in the Constitutional Law Committee and in the Supreme Administrative Court.
As Rantala wrote, the statutory task of the student union is to promote social aspirations related to the student’s status and studies. At the same time, however, he criticized the political influence of student unions. It went unnoticed that social issues are influenced specifically by means of politics. It is typical for democracy that the position of the community becomes the position of the majority. Therefore, the views of the student unions cannot always reflect the opinions of each individual student, but the view of the majority of students.
The text criticized the use of student funds for business projects and development cooperation. The student unions’ development cooperation runs mostly on donations and business is done responsibly, which generates more funds for the student union’s statutory activities, making it possible to keep membership fees moderate. The real estate projects mentioned by Rantala include, for example, much-needed student apartments.
According to Rantala, voluntary membership would strengthen the importance of student unions. However, this is not the case, because in that case the student unions would not be able to represent all Finnish university students in the current way.
Konstantin Kouzmitchev
member of the student union
Helsinki
The reader’s opinions are speeches written by HS readers, which are selected and delivered by the HS editors. You can leave an opinion piece or familiarize yourself with the principles of writing at the address www.hs.fi/kiryotamielipidekeisuis/.
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