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Salient. Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 26, No. 1. Monday, February 25, 1963

Student Leaders Fail

Student Leaders Fail

Young Britishers who spend "too much time" as officers of student organisations frequently either do not complete their courses or fail their final examinations.

This is the conclusion of an informal survey of British universities recently conducted by The Sunday Times of London. This term, students have complained that the ranks of their unions are being decimated as a result of the high toll of scholastic casualties among student officers.

At the Manchester Faculty of Technology, for example, students bound their executive council of 18 reduced by one third when six council members failed to return for the '62 term.

At the London School of Economics the three major posts in the student union—president, deputy president, and senior treasurer—suddenly turned up vacant when these three young men failed their examinations and were forced to resign. A number of other universities and colleges in Great Britain report equally dismal statistics.

Not everyone in England is agreed however, that the drop-out rate among student leaders demonstrates any necessary in compatibility between a student's academic concerns and his duties as an officer.

One university authority felt hat it was a question of the ndividual student's ability to 'manage his time properly." when:ie does not, then he "will have just as much difficulty in passing his examinations whether he is president of the union or just spending his time at the cinema."

And from Oxford came the impatient opinion of Mr Michael Beloff. President of the Oxford Union, who declared firmly: "The union doesn't take any more time than any other activity. I certainly don't have to shelve any academic work to get on with union business."

From New York.