Global student stories

This week’s global student stories come from India, Wales and Scotland, covering the arrest of the president of the Students’ Union from a leading Indian university, the possible scrapping of tuition fee debt in Wales and strong backlash to changes in the way that Scottish universities are ran.

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Indian student leader held on sedition charges

Indian police have arrested Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the students’ Union of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, following a protest that occurred on Tuesday 9 February.

The protest was over the 2013 hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru who was convicted of a 2001 plot to attack the Indian parliament.

The event, which was held on the University’s campus, had people allegedly shouting anti-India slogans as well as against the hanging of Guru.

Since then Kumar has been arrested in connection with a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy. Speaking to the Times of India, Kumar has stated: “[I] dissociate myself from the slogans which were shouted in the event.

“I have full faith in the Constitution of the country.”

University teachers have since criticized the arrest stating in a statement: “We strongly believe that current excessive police action is totally uncalled for, and it has only aggravated situation.”

They have urged police, who are investigating for students that attended Tuesday’s protests, to withdraw from the university’s campus.

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Student debts could be written off in Plaid Cymru plan

Plaid Cymru has reviled plans to write of student debt to Welsh students who return to Wales for work after graduation.

Under the ‘learning bond’ students would have £6,000 a year of tuition fee debt written off. The party said that the policy would warrant that the Welsh economy
would benefit from the talents of Welsh graduates.

The party’s education spokesman, Simon Thomas, said that the policy was a “golden hello to the working world in Wales” and that this plan would help the Welsh economy in ways that the current tuition fee subsidy does not.

The Welsh government currently pays over £5000 to Welsh students’ fees wherever they choose to study and this policy gives an alternative.

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University leaders in open rebellion over SNP reforms

Officials in the higher education sector have attacked laws that will change the way that Scottish universities are governed.

Plans include introducing new paid, elected chairs of unversities’ ruling courts. The backlash has been strong from chairs of Scottish univerisities who are high profiled individuals from a range of fields in law, banking, media and business.

The chairs of 18 Scottish universities have responded by writing open letter regarding these controversial changes, arguing that these changes would have put them off applying for such positions.

Liz Smith, the young people spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservatives, stated that: “The SNP are intent on pressing ahead with deeply damaging reforms which will undermine the effective working of our higher education institutions.

“Instead of respecting the autonomy and diversity of the sector ministers want to impose a one-size-fits-all structure so they can keep tighter control of what goes on in our universities.”

The education secretary, Angela Constance, has already rejected amendments that would have made these changes more acceptable to the higher education sector.