A Swedish language law stops thousands of international students from having an influence on their education at Lund university. One of them is Marco La Rosa, who recently was elected student representative in the International Committee of Lund university.
“The election is a strong signal to the university,” he said.
Inadequate Swedish language courses and lack of social integration with local students. These are some of the problems that Marco La Rosa has noticed since he came to Lund University in August.
“These are issues that Swedish students might not notice the same way,” he said.
At the beginning of October, Lund’s University Student Unions, LUS, chose Marco La Rosa as one of the student representatives for the University’s Internationalisation Committee.
But the question is how much influence Marco La Rosa will be able to have. When the student representatives at the first meeting suggested that the committee would hold its meetings in English, they faced resistance. The Committee documentation must be in Swedish, said chairman Kristina Eneroth.
– “Even if the meetings are held in English, all records, memos, etc. must be written in Swedish according to the Swedish language law,” said Kristina Ekeroth.
This is something which is the same across the board. But Tora Törnquist, chairman of Lund’s University student unions, implies the opposite that Swedish language requirements might be illegal.
“The language law offers legroom for another law which in turn implies something different. According to the law of higher education, students have the right to be represented, which means that it as a law has the right of way,” she said.
“All the meetings at the university may not have to held in English but we should make of translators and translated documents.”
That international students are excluded is a problem which stems in democracy, according to Tora Törnquist.
“Partly due to lack of trust for the unions, due to us having to represent everyone. International students are a individual group with certain questions, for example languages and the lack of a social safety net to fall back on. This is a problem for the university if it really wants to be a international university,” she said.
The Internationalisation Committee’s chairman Kristina Eneroth, is now looking for possible solutions. At the first meeting, several key points of information were held in English. Marco La Rosa believes in that him being elected as a student representative will bring forth change.
– Lund University Students Unions’ choice is a strong signal to the university that international students should have access to the decision making process, he said.
– We are students, European or non-European, we should be able to give our opinion.
Read Lundagård’s in-depth story about the exclusion of international students here.
