[Global Times report] The Education University of Hong Kong announced on the 20th that it has decided not to recognize the status of the student union because the student union is not authorized by the students and lacks representation.
The management of the University of Education sent an email to all teachers and students through the Student Affairs Office on the 20th, stating that the Student Union, as the largest student organization in the school, can participate in the university's policy formulation and consultation process. , the allocation of funds and venues, etc., should represent the student community.
However, as early as 2016, the then interim administrative committee revised the constitution without fully consulting the affected students, excluding the basic membership of some student groups, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of members, and now nearly 30% of full-time students do not Be a member of the Student Union.
Recently, the school learned that the Provisional Administrative Committee is preparing to amend the chapter and reduce the number of basic officers to 4, further weakening the representativeness, so it decided to make a comprehensive review.
During this period, the school will stop collecting student union membership fees, take back its powers to manage campus facilities, borrow venues, etc., and suspend providing email and network support to the union; the student union cannot use the name of the university, and it has accumulated The 9 million Hong Kong dollar reserve must also be temporarily entrusted to the financial department.
The Senate Council of the University of Hong Kong's Student Union expressed "deep condolences" to the suspect in the July 1st police assassination last July, arousing strong social condemnation.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who serves as the school's chancellor, has publicly stated that she is ashamed of the university.
The University of Hong Kong later announced that it would no longer recognize the role of the student union on campus, which means that the student union has changed from an independent registered society to a civil society.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University also announced that it has decided not to collect membership fees for the Student Union from the new academic year.
This is the fourth university after CityU of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong announced that they would stop collecting student union dues.
In December 2021, Lingnan University stated that due to the lack of representation in the current student union, the school may no longer recognize its status as the student representative on campus.
The analysis said that in the "turbulence of amendments" in 2019, the problems exposed by Hong Kong colleges and universities cannot be described as serious.
The Hong Kong police announced in June 2020 that 3,725 students were among the 9,216 people arrested in the "turbulent revision of the bill", accounting for 40.4% of all those arrested.
It is self-evident that many universities in Hong Kong are taking the same steps and the signal sent by the "cutting seats" of the student union is that Hong Kong universities are becoming the focus of a new round of chaos.