I have a problem with the pursuit of “student voice” in schools and colleges. For starters, lack of student voice is never really an issue in my classes. Because they never shut up.

“THANK YOU, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THESE ARE THE JOKES!” (Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to make jokes like that any more after they were specifically mentioned on my disastrous student feedback forms.)

But on a more, appraisal-decreed note of seriousness, I am a little hesitant. Student voice can be co-opted and used as a justification for things that would probably be dismissed with an exasperated eye-roll otherwise.

It’s an incredible coincidence how often student opinion supposedly reflects the reasoning of a newly-introduced system or scheme. Amazing, say, that when a quadruple marking policy is brought in there is a heavily selective quote from the student suggestion box that aligns exactly with what is being proposed.

Ripe for manipulation

The cynic in me suggests that in the worst places, student voice is seen as nothing more than a lever to give credence and push through management diktat, no matter how ill-thought-through. Even when that isn’t the case, “This is what students want” can become an ever-present mantra, as if such a sentiment should be enough to raise an idea above any type of critique from the people that will cop the fallout when it all gets a bit wobbly.

I’m also suspicious of any attempts by colleges to “guide” student voice. That’s not student voice, that’s student voice filtered through a lens. (This is why I think student questionnaires are pretty much useless, as it’s not the students asking the questions.)

As cynical as I am of some of the processes surrounding student voice, I still believe that it has massive value, but only if the voice is authentically the students’ own. This is why I think that the capturing of that voice is perhaps not best left to a college itself, but rather those within the college who most closely represent students’ interests.

Student unions: the solution?

Student unions fit this bill. Within colleges but not necessarily “of” colleges, they represent a step of removal from any overreaching corporate agenda, whilst simultaneously having student interests front and centre. It is here that I believe there is the best chance for authenticity of voice, and many colleges utilise this partnership in an effort to ensure that student voice is, in fact, just that - rather than relegating it to a tool used to enforce policy.

Student voice is something that colleges need to respect. This respect needs to extend to how student voice is gathered and used. Anything less and we risk muffling those voices in exchange for mere lip service.

Tom Starkey teaches English at a college in the North of England