Editorial

University students are often described as an apathetic bunch when it comes to issues that go beyond their immediate areas of interest. The label is sometimes justified, as in the case of their disinterested response to the debate between political party leaders held the other day on campus. It certainly does not stick, however, when it comes to their representative body, the University Students' Council (KSU).

On campus, the KSU is very active. Its calendar of events is replete with activities on the culture and entertainment fronts. It offers day-to-day services to students ranging from helping freshmen get oriented to channelling student complaints to the university authorities. It has drawn up several well thought-out reports on aspects of higher education for consideration by policy-makers, such as on reform, funding, legislation, quality assurance and EU targets. It has carried out student surveys whose results could serve as a useful tool in drawing up policy, such as one last year that found widespread abuse of the students' educational grant.

It promotes and defends the rights of university students and is involved in international student affairs through its representatives on several European student bodies.

This list can only give a taste of the extraordinary amount of work that is done every year by the KSU's small band of enthusiastic executives and a couple of hundred volunteers. One wonders when they actually have time to study, although their personal development must be deeply enriched by such involvement. Indeed, the council has served as a breeding ground for several politicians and promises to keep on doing so in future.

In recent years the KSU has seen its role as extending beyond campus borders. Over the past year, for example, it has submitted its reactions to the budget, the national employment action plan and the proposed pension reforms.

Much of the council's work goes unrecognised by the public at large, leading outgoing president Paul Gonzi to remark the KSU only hits the headlines when it engages in controversy! Perhaps, as befits an organisation of national stature that the council is striving to be, it needs to step up its PR efforts a notch to better highlight what it does and what it stands for.

Its growing profile and reach among the student population have not been lost on the commercial entities which have provided the funds it requires to do much of its work. Its major sponsors have included one of the major banks, HSBC, and a leading mobile phone company, Vodafone.

This type of aid constitutes a valuable side of corporate social responsibility and even shows how it can work in practice. KSU president Anthony Camilleri could not have put it better when he said: "The theory of corporate social responsibility advocates that a company should have not only a financial but also an environmental and social conscience: a concept called the triple bottom line. I can honestly say that out partnership with HSBC (certainly the same can be said for Vodafone) is one of the only instances where I have seen this concept work in reality rather than just as a marketing ploy".

The existence of the KSU is not only of direct benefit to the 9,000 students it represents but, through voicing its views in various ways, it adds the vital student and youth perspective to national debate on important issues.

The council deserves to be listened to and its proposals, which are invariably well-considered and often innovative, taken seriously by policy makers.

It also needs all the financial support it can get.