“STUDENT POWER” is a recognised force the world over. Governments of the world have acknowledged the need to mobilise the latent energy of students. In the free world of the West sudents are a force to reckon with. They can make and un make governmen’s. They are admired, even though in the last decade students throughout Western Europe have had a bad Press. They were associated with drug addiction, uproar, rebellion, immorality and promiscuous sex.

The world disparaged them as irresponsible revolutionaries giving themselves to acts of licentiousness at the expense of the poor tax-payer. Student crises in Britain at the London School of Economics, at Cambridge, Sussex, Essex, and other places a few years ago are still fresh in the mind of the public. The violent demonstrations by students of France and the United States of America, resulting in several deaths some years past cannot be forgotten too soon.

But today there is a new picture altogether. Student politics’s still alive, yet it is not without responsibility. It is these responsible students activism which put western European students on a pedestal. People see them as the heirs of tomorrow. They ad-mir the responsible and hardworking attitude of the undergraduates.

The students themselves recognise their unique position in the state and therefore behave as such. They exhibit their sense of responsibility “coram populo”. By those means students themselves have continuously expunged the notion that the universities are ivory towers for the privileged few.

Huge sums of money are spent on students in the universities. In Britain where there are 44 universities with an intake of over 450 000 s’u-den’s, the State spends about (£5.000 sterling) on every student to a degree level..

University Education is not entirely free. Yet provided the applicant from the humble home has the necessary qualifications, he need not forego his education for lack of funds, Government grants are awarded; some students take loans for their degree courses. Good ‘A’ Level passes are the only conditions sine qua non.

Praiseworthy Activities

The students are aware of these facts. They therefore appreciate immensely the tax payers’ efforts to sponsor their education. The young under graduates collectively and individually undertake various projects during vacation. They are always determined to make the community in which they I’ve better than they found it.

A few examples of how student activism in Britain is endearing students to the public will no doubt interest the reader.

In 1972, a number of British schoolboys aged 13 on a summer holiday set out to discover the extent of river pollution in the nation. Through their report scientists’s of the Nature Conservancy’s Experimental Station at Monk’s word Huntingdon-shire, were able to draw a map showing polluted are-s. The following year others undertook research work to gather information on air pollution.

Students also undertake projects which prove valuable to the people living in a particular community. Two students at Windsor Grammar School made engineering studies of two important bridges in their locality.

To these students, technology means thinking for themselves. This understanding works miracles in students. A 15-year-old boy built an automatic chemical processing plant; a sixth-form boy used his own equipment to measure the length of radio waves. A group of fifth-formers have made an electronic scoreboard for their school sports.

Student Research

Both science and non-science students come together to find solutions to problems. It was in this way that a modified flask has been devised to provide hot drinks for the handicapped.

A team of boys could even set out with a home-made electrocardiograph to test the heart performance of school athletes. Students of Kent Technical High School have made a successful research on the means of warning a driver of excessive speed in fog. In Northern Scotland students through their own initiative have been able to save a fishing industry. Gardeners plagued by worms receive advice, help and information from students.

Students offer concrete advice to manufacturers in their efforts to rehabilitate the elderly and the invalid. For the totally disabled people, students of Doncaster have been able to design an easy electrically powered wheel. chair. About 500 of such chairs are now in use in the Dutch village of Het Dorp. a village specially built to cater for invalids.

The blind-thanks to the ingenuity of British students are now able to move about on streets unguarded through the provision of “Street Maps for the Blind”, The Royal Leicestershire Society for the Blind has a number of such maps. Again Staffan Lindhe, a 21-year old economics student at Stockholm University in 1964 spent his spare time for two and a half years working to revive the sea-going passenger traffic among his people.

These and other laudable student activities are taking place all over the free world. But one may be inclined to ask what the students of Africa are doing, with special reference to Ghanaian undergraduates. Summer holidays see heavy trucks full of students from Togo, Nigeria, Abidjan plying the roads on an excursion spree.

Visit the Ghanaian universities on Saturdays and you will be astonished at the frequency with which students are visiting neighbouring Togo and Dahomey, purchasing such items as whisky, cameras, tape recorders, glasses, Afro shoes, etc. etc. Instead of planning something beneficial to the State as a whole, Ghanaian students visit Akosombo for “a good time”. 

But can our students shoulder all the blame when there are always long essays to write and mountains of books to read for Final Examinations?

The core of this apathy towards independent work no doubt has something to do with political instability in African States. This political instability affects the economy and the various financial institutions. The Banks are reluctant to grant loans for student research work There is always the fear of a change in policy in the wake of a new government. Let a new government come into power and almost every policy of its predecessor is nullified.

Unlike their counterparts in Africa, students in Western Europe and America are not without public assistance. Teachers encourage their students in pursuance of independent scientific research work. In Britain such institutions as the industry, television, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Department of Education and Science all play their part.

Ghanaian student

The absence of such generous institutions in Ghana and Africa militates against scientific research among students. But then it cannot be overstressed that the initiative lies with the students. They have to work out the modus operandi. Instead of roaming the cities for vacation jobs, Ghanaian students can act severally and individually to raise the living standards of the people.

It cannot be denied that students of Ghana do undertake self-help projects in the rural and urban areas. They help build schools, nurseries, roads, and even set up agricultural plantations. These are meritorious activities. Yet they fall short of revolutionary achievement. For certainly there is nothing wonderful or academic about university students cutting sugarcane or digging canals while the masses are unemployed. It does the nation little good or none at all when students fill potholes in Accra, consciously or otherwise disrupting existing traffic arrangements.

Let Ghanaian students on whom the nation spends so much, next to the military, adopt a more serious attitude to life.

Let them cultivate the spirit of self-confidence. Let them learn to die a little for the betterment of the Ghanaian populace. What Ghanaians expect from their students is inventive technology and not televised communal labour. Independent research work will not in any way increase the drop-out rate in our universities. In Britain in spite of the miraculous inventions of students this is only 14 percent, while in Russia it is around 50 per cent.

The National Union of Ghanaian Students (NUGS) should not confine its activities to pro expectations against social injustice. It is not enough for the NUGS to organise Easter Conventions and to hold Annual Conferences. In other words, the NUGS should not be a more talking shop. Rather and more importantly the NUGS should organise its students into teams for creative work. Improvised equipment can be made from local materials. The Banks, groups and certain individuals can be called upon to assist financially.

This is the way to true national self-reliance. This way is a more meaningful and responsible student activism. The Ghanaian State has long been plagued by bread-and-butter student unionism. This can no longer hold.