Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:42:18.852Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - In Defence of University Autonomy and Student Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

Get access

Summary

In the 1960s, the Socialist Club frequently found itself engaged in defending the autonomy of the one remaining arena where its voice was still ringing out loud: the campus. The collision between the state and students over the issues of university autonomy, academic freedom and student rights in the 1960s grew out of the tensions over the university's role that had existed since its inception in 1949. Yeo Kim Wah has noted how the very first cohort of student leaders in 1949-1950 “felt it their duty to vigilantly guard” these principles and even occasionally oppose “the sizeable presence of government elements in the university as a possible impingement on university autonomy”. For twenty-five years thereafter, the issues of university autonomy, academic freedom and student rights became a recurring trigger for protest among more student groups. Beyond the University of Singapore campus, the university's students also became deeply concerned about the escalating pressure exerted on their fellow students in other educational institutions in Singapore. The exacerbated urgency and intimacy of the questions of university autonomy, academic freedom and student rights in the mid-1960s coalesced into a passionate student movement in which University of Singapore student activists of all political orientations actively participated.

The Socialist Club usually participated as a follower, rather than as a leader, in student protests against state interference in the university. It did so both directly and through the efforts of its members in the Students’ Council. Many Club members saw the principles of autonomy and rights as inviolate and central to the roles and identities of the university and its students. Foremost among these was the right and obligation of students to contribute to national politics. As a student society of unabashedly critical and committed student activists, the Club often encountered and provoked government attention. The critical questions the University Socialists asked about the economic marginalisation of the masses, the deep-seated problem of communalism, the arbitrary use of undemocratic powers and the persistent forms of neo-colonialism in Singapore were deemed to be distracting, even dangerous, to the reconstitutive work of the post-colonial state. The Club's members also celebrated its survival and resilience in the aftermath of yet another round of political suppression.

Type
Chapter
Information
The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya
Tangled Strands of Modernity
, pp. 209 - 232
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×