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Political Power, Civil Education and Meaningful (School) Elections
I agree with Wayne that steps should be taken to bring about free and fair elections in Singapore schools. Civil education in our schools is mainly textual and emphatic on civic duties rather than civil rights and responsibilities, reinforced by compulsory 'volunteer' work in various community involvement projects. Students learn close to nothing about democratic processes and principles, and this only furthers the reproduction of social and political apathy in each cohort.
But here is the crux of the problem as I see it. Free and fair elections are meaningless as long as the student council or a student leadership body by any other name does not have real political power to influence the life of the school. Our country's general elections are meaningful, the interminable incumbent party's tactics notwithstanding (and explained precisely because of the following reason), because the winning party would have real political power in shaping the life of the nation: it runs the executive arm of the government, dominates the legislative arm and appoints the members of the institutionally independent judicial arm.
As long as student councils are relegated to the management of mundane properties like notice boards and lockers and to the organization of perfunctory school events such as orientation and prize-giving days, the councils are mere exercises in political tokenism. To take Wayne's example, why would more than fourteen students want to compete for the thirteen seats on his secondary school's student council? As long as student leadership is reduced to a cog in the autocratic management of school life, councilors as middling officers in the hierarchical chain of command, cynical apathy will always reduce the choices of voting students, if the latter would even bother to care in the first place.
It is no wonder that the election center in Wayne's junior college was a mish-mash of biographical obsession, charismatic showings by candidates, gossipy discussions and unabashed non-secrecy. When there is no real political power, personality rather than issues drive the electoral process. Council elections become low-grade Singapore Idol-like entertainment rather than the culmination of debates about the social and political life of the school. I have my own anecdote. The only significant memory of my junior college's student council elections I have is a controversy over one candidate's trustworthiness because he secretly smoked in the toilet and denied he did during the campaigning. He was elected nevertheless, because trustworthiness was irrelevant since he would have no power anyway. Besides, the controversy made him a more colorful candidate than the rest, that is, he had entertainment value.
So, more than free and fair elections, the true reform lies in the reform of the institutions of school governance. School councils should be given more power to influence the life and management of their schools. Of course, it would be ridiculous and dangerous to hand over completely the running of a school to students, though I doubt students today have the sophistication to launch cultural revolutions or radical programs that will threaten our overly-conservative social fabric. After all, schools are functionally institutions of secular education and not organic or constituted political communities. Students do not embody the full civil rights and responsibilities of a citizen, nor can we expect them to have the ability to exercise civil rights and responsibilities. It is precisely the school's function to teach the students civil rights and responsibilities and train them to become future citizens of the nation.
And if there is anything that is fundamental to the formation of a democratic citizenry, it is the development of the faculty for political awareness and reasoning that translates into civil engagement, deliberation and debate about how our society should be run. Civil education in schools should focus on the development of this faculty rather than the inculcation of civic pride and obligations. Therefore, free and fair elections are meaningful only when the student council is plugged into a governance structure that balances student political power and civil education.
Though I shudder at the implication of discursively equating students to ignorant natives subject to the pedagogical benevolence of enlightened colonial masters, allow me to throw this suggestion out for elaboration or deconstruction. A good model for a balanced governance structure for our schools is the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements. In its fullest elaboration before decolonization, the Council was constituted by one-half of key officials of the colonial government and one-half of 'unofficials' representing the main communities of the Settlements, with the governor holding the deciding vote.
Similarly, a school council may be constituted by one-half of top executive officers of the school (vice-principals, heads of departments etc.) and one-half of elected student councilors representing student interests, with the principal holding the deciding vote. As to the scope of the school council's legislative powers, the school board shall decide, test and reevaluate from time to time using the guiding principle of balancing student power and civil education without compromising the normal efficiency of day-to-day school management. If carried out properly, this semi-democratization will improve school cohesion and spirit, increase student stakeholding and participation in the life of the school, train future political leaders and develop the political capacity of future citizens.
The most important educating aspect of the council will be the public reasoned deliberations about school policies, rules and regulations. Rationales will be communicated, student interests represented, compromises negotiated, issues debated, opinions formed, understanding reached, disagreements agreed, legitimacy achieved. This democratic process, I argue, is substantively more important than the formal process of free and fair elections.
I wonder whether this point may be transposed to the national level, to the general elections such as the one in recent memory. We may have formally free and fair periodic general elections, but is the political process here substantively democratic? Seen in the light of this rhetorical question, the semi-democratization of our schools will be a small but significant step towards removing the mockery of political representation and citizenry power entrenched in the everyday institutions of our national life.
