As students, we face many challenges. All too often we find ourselves underrepresented, financially overburdened, and faced with a bureaucracy that is difficult to navigate. Whether fresh out of high school or returning after years in the workplace; whether from around the world or around the corner, being a student can be an overwhelming experience. And, not everyone we encounter has our best interest at heart. It is for these reasons that it is important that we know and assert our rights as students.

The Student Rights Handbook is a resource developed by the Students’ Union to educate and empower its members. It seeks to provide members with the knowledge required to ensure fair treatment on our campus, in our classrooms, in our workplaces, and in our homes. It is also a declaration to our campus and community that students will not be passive or frightened but rather will stand strong together.

At its core, the Student Rights Handbook is founded upon our fundamental right as students to education. This is not a right we hold by virtue of citizenship, nor by virtue of wealth – we hold this right by virtue of our humanity. We declare our right to education as human beings. We are not alone in our declaration. In particular, we make our declaration in accord with the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This covenant states:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education… [and] higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.

While many have shared our vision for justice in education, we have yet to achieve our goal. We have not witnessed the “progressive introduction of free education,” but instead have come to know the barriers of massively inflated user fees and the crushing realities of student debt. We have witnessed the injustice of differential user fees on the basis of citizenship, and the shameful lack of opportunities for aboriginal students.

Today, our right as students, and the right of all those who strive against inequity to become students, has been violated. But we must not despair and we must not capitulate. We must struggle towards justice. The right to education, as all rights, will not be easily given – it must be taken. We can look to the victories of Ireland, Sweden, and other countries where education is provided without financial requirements. We can look to our own victories in capping, freezing, or reducing tuition fees in many provinces.

Student rights extend to all other aspects of our lives, and certainly our treatment as tenants and workers is equally important to our ability to pursue our education. The Student Rights Handbook can help guide students through all of our difficulties and provide a better future for generations of students. We fight together with hundreds of thousands of students in the Canadian Federation of Students for justice in education. We fight with many more across the globe. Together we can win our rights!

Download your own Student Rights handbook by clicking on the link or stop by the Members’ Services Desk for a printed copy.