Only overseas students allowed to vote for OSC chair
Members of societies belonging to the Overseas Societies Committee (OSC) may be disenfranchised in the vote for OSC Chair, Felix found out this week. Last year, Union Council passed a motion to make the OSC Chair an automatic member of the Union's Executive Committee. Union President, Sameena Misbahuddin, explained, "30% of Imperial students are international, so you kind of have to make sure they are represented there."
Eric Lai, ACC Chair, disagrees, "The Union Executive is for the dayto -day running of the Union. I don't see why it is so important to have an international student on the committee." As an overseas student paying home fees himself, Lai seems more concerned with the way that the OSC Chair will now be elected.
According to the motion passed last year, instead of being elected by the clubs and societies that the position represents, the OSC Chair will be elected by a college-wide secret ballot, only open to those students who do not have `home' as their fees status. This would result in 28% of students belonging to overseas societies being ineligible to vote. Some societies, that are mainly composed of home students, (including the Indian and Bangladeshi societies) will have almost no say in who becomes OSC Chair.
It is a cause for concern that some of the students who need to be represented are not allowed to vote in particular, those who have dual nationality of British and another country, and have chosen to pay home fees and British nationals who have roots overseas. Lai believes that if the placement of an international student on the executive is a welfare issue, then there should be an overseas welfare officer who can represent overseas students regardless of whether or not they belong to an overseas society.
Jasmine Sze, the current OSC Chair, commented, "I think it's unfair to only allow overseas students to vote. Anyone should be able to vote for OSC Chair because at the end, they are still Imperial students. Just because they don't pay overseas fees doesn't mean they shouldn't be classified as an overseas student that's unfair to a lot of international students in college. Any overseas society's members should be allowed to vote for OSC Chair."
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