In our modern era, universities are no longer merely academic spaces closed to academic achievement, but rather have turned into vital platforms for shaping awareness, creating leadership, and producing ideas that shape the future. In this context, student partisanship emerges as one of the most important manifestations of democratic transformation and political modernization within societies.

Student party work, when practiced within clear legal and institutional frameworks, constitutes an early national school for learning the values ​​of participation, pluralism, acceptance of others, and dialogue based on programs and not on people. The university is the first natural environment in which a young person experiences the concept of active citizenship and exercises his right to expression, organization and accountability.

In recent years, we have witnessed a qualitative shift in the state and society’s view of party work, as it is no longer seen as a confrontational situation or a closed elite activity, but rather as an integral part of the project of political modernization and building the modern civil state. Hence, student partisanship represents the first lever for this project, if it is properly directed and invested.

However, the real challenge does not lie in the presence of partisanship within universities, but rather in its content and behavior. Conscious partisanship is that which moves from slogans to programmes, from intense polarization to positive competition, and from narrow loyalties to comprehensive national affiliation. As for partisanship, which is based on exclusion or unconscious mobilization, it empties political action of its content and turns it into a burden instead of an opportunity.

From my experience in party work, I believe that the university student possesses tremendous intellectual energy, and if he is empowered with the right tools—political training, constitutional knowledge, and safe spaces for dialogue—he will be able to produce new political elites who believe in gradual reform, institutional work, and partnership with the state, not clash with it.

What is required today is a true partnership between universities, parties, and state institutions, based on responsible political education, respecting the privacy of the university campus, and transforming it into a mature democratic laboratory, not an arena for ideological conflict.

In conclusion, student partisanship is not a threat to stability, but rather a guarantee for the future if managed rationally, and an essential lever for preparing a generation that believes that politics is not a struggle for power, but rather a public service, a national responsibility, and a tool for positive change.

* Former Secretary General of the Jordanian Shula Party