Honduran University Students Demand Better Representation and Funding

Student representatives of the Honduras National University’s eight regional centers got together in Tegucigalpa for two days starting Thursday to prepare the documents that could create the first Student Constituent Assembly since the 1950's, with a focus to change the electoral system for student authorities.

The students demand that their representatives come from the student's associations instead of the government run Student Unions which have existed for more than 50 years.

This new movement has been requesting elections for three years, but authorities have declared that they have to participate as part of the Student Unions. The university students do not see those structures as their representative. 

“As university students we intend to create the CEU that is a Constituent Assembly of the university students so we can participate in the University Council, to have a space in a democratic way” said Gabriela Martinez who came from the city of Tocoa, in the northeastern region and is part of the Students Commission.

A new movement

​Last month, a group of students took control of the buildings in the San Pedro Sula regional center demanding more funding from the authorities, and their actions started a new movement.

Rapidly other students in other centers followed their actions and the requests passed from demanding better facilities to the urgency of a new election process and the transformation of the university`s students representation.

“We as students are the ones that in the Sula Valley are paying with our money for the repairs of the buildings, we are investing in air conditioners, painting our class rooms, but we believe that that is responsibility of the university authorities” said Daniel Morales, a member of the Mathematics Students Association from San Pedro Sula to teleSUR.

Moises Caceres, sociology student explained that “one must understand the University Reform and also the violation of our university autonomy by the traditional political parties in Honduras that have the Student Fronts as their representation inside the academy, politicians deciding over academy for many years in Honduras, but we as students have woken up.”