Talk:Class president

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Proposed mergers

Proposed merge from Head girl and head boy

I propose merging Head girl and head boy into Class president. Both articles cover largely similar school leadership roles, differing primarily in terminology across countries. A consolidated article could better represent the global variety of student leadership as a whole.

I welcome comments from other editors. — Issac I Navarro (talk) 21:40, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Proposed merger of two articles into this one

I propose merging Student government president into Class president. Both articles describe closely related roles often found within the same school governance systems. While the roles are distinct in function; one leads an individual class, the other the entire student body, but are part of the broader structure of student leadership. Per WP:MERGE and WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, a unified article would reduce redundancy and allow for a more coherent treatment of student leadership titles.

Furthermore, if this merge were to take place, would it then be appropriate to consider renaming the article to Student president to reflect the broader scope? Issac I Navarro (talk) 17:17, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Support per nom, these are the same topic. Head girl and head boy is also tagged but not mentioned here and should also be merged. — Reywas92Talk 18:32, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
@Reywas92 Mentioned above with Talk:Class president#Proposed merge from Head girl and head boy Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't think these are exactly the same thing. Notwithstanding the obvious point that a head boy is not a class leader, there's also other differences such as head boys and girls being appointed by staff (usually) while presidents are elected. Each of these concepts has its own distinct history and culture, and for the most part presidents are an American thing while HB/HG is British/Commonwealth, so I think it's better to keep as separate topics.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
@Amakuru If I may further ask, that if you would you support a name change if these such articles where to be merged? As this will better illustrate how student leadership roles differ, furthermore the page Class officers, could benefit from a more thorough approach as well because it mostly talks about the same things. As many of these roles (being HB/HG and student president) vary by country or region, yet fundamentally serve the same or very similar purposes. As you point out, the main difference being region, and the history. That being said, a merge may help reader to have a better understanding on the differences. Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm after the fact on this, but would have opposed a merge or redirect of Head girl and head boy to this article if I'd seen it earlier - because of the point Amakuru makes about the difference in the roles. Head boy / girl is a whole school role, and has significance in the UK context even when people are adults. For instance, this sketch about former PM Theresa May refers to the role. A rename to "Student leadership" would help, but my preference would be to maintain separate articles as these really are different things. Tacyarg (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Adding that I don't think the merge / redirect of Head girl and head boy was discussed on that article's Talk page, unless I'm missing something in the historic Talk page. So not sure the silent consensus has weight there. Tacyarg (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. Looking at the actual content of the articles, "class president" appears to be almost entirely about classes in secondary schools while "student government president" appears to be about the student government/students' union at colleges and universities. I don't think a post that is typically a sabbatical officer and CEO of a multi-million pound charity serving university students and a high school class president are in any way similar. These are two completely different roles, albeit with similar titles, and should be kept separate. Robminchin (talk) 04:59, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin While it true that the page Student government president mentions student government/students' union at colleges and universities and mostly stays on that level. However, if I may point out, I believe that you may be mistaken with your interpretation of the page. The page is written rather confusingly, and I can see where you may be under that impression. Such as under:
  • "Duties" - "Duties usually include working with students to resolve problems, informing school administration of ideas emanating from the student body, and managing the student government in the capacity of Chief Executive Officer." - it alludes to the idea that there is power from this position however the wording makes it seem more grand. I bolded the words in the capacity of, as it contributes to that ambiguity.
  • Furthermore with such lines, as "In the United States, more than 77% of student government presidents are compensated." - https://www.asgaonline.com/asga/sg-salary-survey it appears that this is mentioning how that "They receive salaries, tuition waivers, scholarships, stipends, computers, cell phones, reserved parking, concert tickets, clothing allowances, class credit, and more." This again implies a focus on students as a whole, not a specific educational level.
  • Lastly, the article’s scope is rather narrow, written almost exclusively from an American perspective, as seen in examples like: “The student government presidents within the University System of Georgia also serve on the statewide Student Advisory Council of Georgia.” Such passages limit its global applicability, it is a poorly written page. Most of the page lacks any sources to back up it's claims.
That said, if I have misunderstood any portion of the article’s intent, I would be most grateful for clarification. Issac I Navarro (talk) 05:29, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
My knowledge of SUs is primarily from British universities, where the SU is a separately configured charity run by the SU executive, headed by the SU president. The SU president will often also be a member of the university's governing body. The current page is certainly poorly written and needs a lot of improvement.
One problem here is US usage of "school" to refer to universities, but it appears that the page is entirely about student government at universities and colleges. ASGA (the source for the 77% receiving compensation), according to their website, support student government at "public, private, community & technical colleges" – this looks to be an organisation at the post-secondary level only, and it also seems very unlikely that secondary school students would be salaried. Robminchin (talk) 06:17, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin
Here is the page for American Student Government Association.
I see what you mean and agree with how the term of school is being used. I would like to mention how, below on this talk page, I bring up how student unions are common in high schools/secondary schools. I briefly illustrate this by mentioning the image of the Union Building on the Portola High School. It is to my knowledge that it is common for secondary schools in America to have a student government along side with a class president. Also, mentioning the mass amount of names.
- I am able to find many primary sources from American high schools that talk about their program and use the name and terminology of student government. While also describing the function.
I am finding it incredibly difficult to find reliable source as blogs and high school pages keep popping up instead of anything useful as a reliable source. Issac I Navarro (talk) 06:45, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
also the page Student governments in the United States may be useful. Issac I Navarro (talk) 06:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. A search for student union president brings up lots of sources that are (at least for the first few pages) exclusively about universities. Most are individual institutions, but the this role description from the Union of Students in Ireland is more general.:
  • Acts as the head of the Students’ Union, Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer
  • Sits on the institution’s Governing Body and other committees and sub-committees of the college to voice students’ concerns.
  • Oversees finances of the Union and prepares the annual budget.
  • Communicates with media on behalf of the Union Leads local and national campaigns on behalf of the Union
  • Reports work to student Council/Senate
  • Responsible for overall work of the organisation and delegating work and areas of policy to other members of the SU Team
  • May oversee human resources of the Union
  • Responsible for supporting the Executive Team; including the other full-time and part-time officers
  • Oversees and approves the running of all union activities and events
  • Is the SU Rep at USI National Council with voting rights
The description for the president of UCL's SU is similar:
You will be a full time Sabbatical Officer of the Students’ Union working as part of team of six officers to provide leadership to the Students’ Union; and representing the interests of students to UCL and national policymakers, including participating in UCL committees and regular meetings with senior staff.
You will Chair the Students’ Union Board of Trustees and Executive. You will lead the Union’s relationships with UCL’s President and Provost. You will be the lead Sabbatical Officer for the SU’s strategy and finances, national policy issues, student democracy, environmental sustainability and commercial services. You will also be a member of UCL’s governing Council.
Despite being a very different institution, the SU president for Warwickshire College is similar:
The President is the Chief Executive of the Union and has overall responsibility for ensuring resolutions are delegated and carried out. The President is responsible for bringing the full executive together as a team. The President oversees all of the union services and finances ensuring they follow policies decided by the student body. This post is only for students over the age of 18 on the 1st of August on the year of the election.
Other responsibilities listed again include membership of the governor body:
  • Attend the Corporation Board and other relevant college committees and providing relevant reports to Governors, and report back to the union.
One thing that comes through clearly is that high school student government is (as would be expected, and which also matches my experience in the UK) far more limited and has far fewer responsibilities. Some of this is differences of scale but others, such as the budget responsibility or the membership of the institution's governing body, just aren't there at high school level. No high school student leader is likely to be in a sabbatical position with significant legal duties, many of which are limited to people over 18.
The aim of proposed merger is to "reduce redundancy and allow for a more coherent treatment of student leadership titles" but by putting together things that are so different it will lead to less coherent treatment. I'm not sure what the relevance of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is to this, but WP:MERGE is clear that "Merging should be avoided if ... The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles". This looks to be the case hear. Robminchin (talk) 20:12, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
The same logic applies to the proposed merger of HG/HB into this article. As others have described, these are different roles that are appointed by school leadership rather than begin elected by pupils. I can see how the confusion has arisen as the HG/HB article is not well written for someone who doesn't already know what the post is. Robminchin (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin
That would help to make it clearer, HB/HG, should remain with that context but would need a rewrite to make it clearer.
I see what you are saying in regards to how it is a more encompassing thing student government in university. However, many primary schools in America do many of the things you mentioned,
I was able foind this from a school website talking about what their school dose: ASB Manual/Forms – Business Services – South Monterey County Joint Union High School District //share.google/ud1o6fXGZl2JsYEo4
while not useful to Wikipedia, I bring it up as it shows how it acts and does many of the things you bring up. The vast majority of websites that talk about what a school president does come directly from the given school website, usually as a https/share.google. The majority do illustrate how they:
Acts as the head of the students government in the secondary school/high school
Sits on the institution's Governing Body and other committees and sub-committees, often times student president are to attend school district, bord meetings.
Oversees finances of the students government, as well as the budget of the clubs and events that the school decides to host with an adult/teacher.
Among many of the others things you suggest. Yet, as you point out it is overwhelming more of a job at University/College. I agree with you. With that in mind, there needs to be a clearer distinction in the pages.
I also wanted to note that it was mentioned that student do not get paid, I was able to find this news article: ASB leaders honored at annual luncheon – San Diego Union-Tribune https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2019/03/11/asb-leaders-honored-at-annual-luncheon/ mentioning how "Each student received a check for $250 and a certificate and medalli" showing that they did get a grant for there work as a student government president(It seems the term ASB is mostly used on the West Coast of the United States). It seems common for students in high school to get some sort of composition for their work. Issac I Navarro (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. However, getting a small gratuity is very different from having a full time salaried job. The bottom-like difference remains that at higher education institutions students have adult responsibility. The ASB Manual in the link you provided makes it clear that actual responsibility lies with the principal and the ASB advisor, not the students. When it comes to things like budgets, the legal responsibility for "Ensuring that all ASB funds are raised and spent in accordance with applicable laws and the district’s policies and procedures" lies with the principal, not the student government. Robminchin (talk) 22:14, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin
I completely agree that children who take on the role are more of that of an assistant or aids in shadowing the adults. It seems sometimes this even takes up a student class period, and it is used more of a learning opportunity.
I also agree that the university page needs to be more fleshed out to better illustrate the difference between adults whom it their job to work on the student government in university opposed to children at high school. Issac I Navarro (talk) 22:25, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Class secretary into Student council

Moved from Talk:Student council § Proposed merge from Class officers
 – FaviFake (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I propose merging Class officers into Student council. The topics substantially overlap, as "class officers" are typically a subset of student government structures already described in the student council article.

Thoughts and feedback are welcome. — Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:07, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Support Alternatively there could be "Student leadership" or similar article that merges these with Class president et al. instead but there's a lot of overlap in these articles. — Reywas92Talk 23:38, 24 August 2025 (UTC)
@Reywas92
I agree. It seems that there is a lot of overlap between many pages that deal with student leadership as a whole. Many pages seem as though they could be rewritten to a clearer article.
Issac I Navarro (talk) 02:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
I am referring to these pages. Issac I Navarro (talk) 02:23, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Let's organise

Ok fellas, I'm the closer of the first discussion above. A few things:
  1. Because of how the talk page is structured, I did not see this section (where HB/HG was opposed) before I closed the discussion above and perfomed the merger of HB/HG into this article. So, obviously, WP:SILENT consensus didn't apply; editors are free to revert the merger, but you may want to keep the WP:STATUSQUO until the discussion ends. (However, the discussion may be easier if the merger of HB/HG is reverted, so editors can see what they're discussing. You do you.) [Update 22:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC): Merger undone by me at Amakuru's request.]
  2. However, @Tacyarg, the merger should only be discussed on the target page, not the source. The {{Merge to}} template was applied properly and it was the only required and recommended notification. (See WP:MERGE.)
  3. I've now closed the discussion above per WP:MULTI, to avoid what happened with myself. Both mergers can and shoud still be discuseed further to iron out the consensus.
  4. Personally, I support the merger of HG/HB and especially of Student government president. In my opinion, HB/HG is too short to stand on its own and fits nicely enough into the article (i'd assume it's relatively rare for the role of a head boy/girl to be assigned to a grown-up (wo)man). Student government president is also just full of unreferenced content; if it were cleaned up, it'd only take up a paragraph at most. I also support renaming (moving) Class president (this article) to Student president or something similar per @Issac I Navarro
Thoughts? FaviFake (talk) 21:03, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Pinging Reywas92 and Amakuru to see if they wish to contribute more to the discussion. FaviFake (talk) 21:04, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation re mergeto. Tacyarg (talk) 21:05, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
I concur with the overall points made. A name change seems sensible, and the structure of the Class president article would indeed need to be reworked in the process. As it seems at it's current time it is not all that clear in certain parts of the page. If a name change was to happen a broader framing under something like Student president could accommodate the various titles (class president, student body president, head boy/girl, etc.) in a more organized manner, that being said, sections in the page would need to be more clear and cleaned up. For example in many anime, the naming, is often something along the lines of that. In such a section that is referencing media that should also be made more clear. Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:27, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I've moved 2 more discussions here so we can discuss them more easily. This is indeed a mess! Something definitely needs to be merged. For now, I'll support merging or outright blanking and redirecting Hall monitor. It's incredibly short, not cited, and only has 1 source. Thoughts? FaviFake (talk) 21:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
I've had a look at Hall monitor and done a quick search. Haven't found any references it would be useful to add. Mostly where the term comes up it's in primary sources, specifically legal documents where a hall monitor is involved. If this came up at AfD, I'd !vote delete based on the coverage I've found. So although I would support redirect or merge in theory, I'm honestly not sure there is any content in that article that's worth moving over to this one. Having said that, a caveat that I'm not familiar with the concept, so it's possible that is limiting my searches. Tacyarg (talk) 22:00, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
@Tacyarg I agree with that, as that page is rather short, and deletion of the page may be warranted. However, as you point out, there may be an alternative in the sense of having it as a subsection in the page. much like the page Class officers. However, that page too is also flawed. Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I also wanted to note that I have seen the following pages:
Would it be helpful to reference any of these if a name change were to occur for Class president? Issac I Navarro (talk) 04:01, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
@FaviFake: thanks for the ping but I'm sorry, but how are you seeing a consensus to do this merge? There was not much participation and I've given clear reasons why the head boy and head girl concept should not be conflated with class presidents - given the difference in history and culture around the positions. You said yourself that there is a lack of consensus, so please revert to the status quo ante. I get that the HB/HG article is short, but if I find time in the coming weeks I will look to add some detail to it. I'm not fussed about the other topics being discussed here, e.g. hall monitor, so if you want to proceed with a merger of those then go ahead. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:01, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
You wish has been granted, I've undone the merger of the HB/HG article. As I've explained, I didn't see the discussion in which you commented, which is why I thought there was WP:SILENT consensus. FaviFake (talk) 22:05, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, FaviFake and Amakuru. I'd also like to add some content to HG&HB if I can find the time, and it's probably easier to do that now we're back with a separate article. I've flagged up this discussion at WP:WikiProject Schools in case others have views. Tacyarg (talk) 22:09, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes, thanks FaviFake, and sorry if my comment above came off as rude. It's been a long week and I probably need to take a few more deep breaths before hitting the "publish" button sometimes! Hopefully we can get some decent content into this to make it clear what the concept is all about. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
@Amakuru That sounds like a plan, I agree and see how that the page HB/HG could be left as a stand alone page. The initial reason that I proposed the merge was due to the lack of information I was able to find that came from a Wikipedia:Reliable sources, to add to that page. Now that may be due as I am in the States, thus I was finding it difficult to find info regarding the matter. Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:37, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
@Tacyarg I also flagged up this discussion at
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Education hoping to get more eyes on this matter. Issac I Navarro (talk) 18:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Rename "Class president" to a more encompassing title

The result of the discussion was merge mostly following § Robminchin's proposal. I think it's time we close this discussion and actually go ahead, after 2+ weeks of no new comments. There was wide agreement to follow a structure similar to this (I added a hatnote to each describing their differences):

However, there was a bit more discussion on the merger of School Council and HG/HB. Regarding the first, the only opposer was the creator of the page, while the majority argued that the scope of the pages was not distinct enough to avoid a merger. Regarding the second, I didn't find consensus for merging it, but since it doesn't seem too contentious I'll go ahead and merge it into the proposed alternative target. It can be discussed more in the future if anyone objects to it.

Thanks everyone for participating in the discussion. Update: the merger of HG/HB is being discussed at Talk:Class president § Head girl and head boy. FaviFake (talk) 17:25, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This article is currently titled Class president, but the role it describes goes by many different names across English-speaking school systems, often with overlapping or distinct functions. For clarity and international coverage, a broader title may be more appropriate. At its current time, it seems rather confusing.

Common English terms for the role
  • Class president
  • Class representative / Class rep
  • Senior class president
  • (Junior/appropriate garde) class president
  • 'Student body president (ASB president)/government' president
  • Student council president
  • School president
  • School parliament president / School senate president
  • School leader
  • School captain / Head student
  • Head boy / Head girl
  • Prefect / Senior prefect
  • Class monitor

There are probably more titles but these are the ones I was able to find to be the most main stream.

Why this creates confusion

In many schools, multiple "presidents" can exist at once:

  • A Senior Class President for the graduating class.
  • A Junior Class President for the 11th grade.
  • A Sophomore / Freshman Class President for younger grades.

Or even more confusing this could also be a thing at primary schools, secondary schools or any form of a former education setting where students are allowed to be a leader of some sort.

  • A Student Body (ASB) President who represents the entire school.
  • A Student Council President who chairs the council and may overlap with the ASB president.
  • There are also club presidents however that seems outside the scope of this, as a School club is more of an interest based organization.

Thus, "Class president" is only one variation of a much broader student leadership structure, and its current title does not reflect the range of terms used in different regions and systems. That ultimately do the same thing that being a student leadership structure.

Proposal

To reduce confusion and make the page internationally inclusive, I propose moving the article to a broader title such as:

  • Student representative
  • or Student leader

All regional variants (Class president, Student body president, Head boy, School captain, Class representative, etc.) would remain as redirects. This would help readers search under different names and find the same core article. However, this task would need the page to be reworked to better suit this. I would like to know what more people thoughts are on this matter. @Reywas92 — I noticed that you would support a name change. Is what I currently have above, somewhat summarize the issue with the current name? Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

@FaviFake Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
As this is a large proposal, I have notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education, Talk:Head girl and head boy, Talk:Student leader, Talk:Student government president, Talk:Students' representative council, Talk:Student council, Talk:Students' union, Talk:Class officers, Talk:Senior man and Talk:Hall monitor. FaviFake (talk) 20:35, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

FaviFake's proposal

UPDATE 16:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC): I now mostly support Robminchin's proposal instead. FaviFake (talk)

This is a wonderful proposal, thanks for creating it. I agree they should all be merged and redirected to this article. To make it as transparent as possible, I'll create a list of the articles that would be affected and merged into the new article. Please tell me if I'm missing any or if some are too different ans shouldn’t be included: The symbol (+) marks a page added later.
  1. Head girl and head boy
  2. Student leader
  3. Student government president
  4. Students' representative council
  5. Student council
  6. School Council (+)
  7. Students' union
  8. Class officers
  9. Senior man
  10. Hall monitor
  11. Dutch Student Union, this one is very small
  12. Prefect § Academic (only that section) could also be moved/merged/reorganised once the pages above are merged (+)
  13. and of course the target of all these mergers, Class president, which will be renamed to Student representative, Student leader, or something else.
  14. Update {{Education}} to remove the resulting redirects. (+)
The pages below are expressly not included. They're only here so editors can get a better sense of the landscape of "student leadership" pages currently on Wikipedia:
Personally, I would support the merge into Student representative, although I'm not too opposed to Student leader. It's just that the former seems more broad imo.
What do you think? FaviFake (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan @FaviFake here are some things that I would like to note: 1. updating this Template once this page is fixed

{{Education}}

2. Student society while this page should be left alone as it too such distinct. However, subsections such as Canada, gives some overlap. Student court, should not as well as it is also too distinct.
3. The pages Student lounge, Common room, and Student center, may also need a merger within themselves however, that is outside of the scope for this matter. And should not be included. Furthermore, there inclusion to this page would make this complicated matter even more complicated. However I wanted to note that often time there is a room for student government/union. That is room is often times an exclusive room specifically for these student leaders to meet up or do the jobs. The room serves as a base for student leaders to plan events, manage student funds, among other things, As seen it is common at high schools/ secondary school to also have these building. I found these images on Commons that show a student unions at high schools:
More information No., Office / Building ...
No. Office / Building Institution
1 Student Union Building Portola High School
2 Student Union Building Independence High School
Close
4. Class council is a page that could be added to your list. Also Prefect in the subsection, Academic, parts of that may be useful.
5. To note about school captain, how it got merged to HG/HB's page and Class secretary. For Class secretary, the merger that took place and how it may be better suited in this page once this page is fixed.
Those are just my thoughts. Hopefully that is helpful. Issac I Navarro (talk) 22:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
One more thing, I wanted to note, the difference in other languages. It seems that these translations of the page seem to have the most substances and may help with the framework for how Class president operates in other places.
  • it -
  • de -
  • fr -
Issac I Navarro (talk) 22:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks so much! This was very useful. I added the pages you suggested to my comment and marked them with (+). I have also blanked blanked Class council and redirected it to Student council as it had been orphaned and almost completely unsourced since 2009 and was actually created as a redirect! I checked if something could be merged but nothing of value was sourced.
The templates aren't required but we can figure them out later, in the meantime i added a few. Now we just need to wait for other people to comment! FaviFake (talk) 13:12, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@FaviFake
Also, the page School Council should be mentioned in your list as affected pages. I say this as the name is confusing and may need more clarity. It seems that this page may also be able to be merged as it could go into a subsection about different regions and the difference of them. It is important to note that while it is solely about the house system and council system in Myanmar schools, it overlaps with the discussion above. Issac I Navarro (talk) 15:08, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Here are two more pages that may also be of some use as they tie into this topic, National Association of Secondary School Principals and Centro de alumnos, I am not proposing that these two pages being merged.
Another thing, it seems that the majority of these pages being discussed were written entirely with the American perspective in mind. Student governments in the United States also mentions this type of student leadership role. Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:40, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
 Added all of these. I fully agree, School Council doesn't even look like it'd survive AfD. Added the resto to list of non–merge sources. FaviFake (talk) 16:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
On the talk pages of:
I added Discussion at Talk:Class president § Proposed mergers. As while most of these pages are fine as they are and don't need to be included in @FaviFake's list. However, they do relate to the topic at hand. Issac I Navarro (talk) 16:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks so much! I also wanted to this but didn't have the time. FaviFake (talk) 16:47, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
I've refined it and added more verifiable sources and academic papers. You may check it. နေနီဝန်း (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

More than 1 merge target?

From a UK perspective, there is a distinction between high school and university level which I don't think fit into the title "Student leader". For example, Senior Man would fit better with Common room (university); Students' representative council and Students' union tend to be university level groupings. Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:41, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

That would help clear up the confusion.
I am not opposed to that. However, what would be done about the inclusion of international student representatives. For example, in many American schools, they use these terms extremely loosely. Thus causing some of the confusion. Furthermore, it can also be seen, such as Canadian schools, which also seem to follow this as well. Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:46, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Agreed. Senior man could be merged with common room (university) but doesn't fit here at all. The university-level bodies also don't fit here but SRC could be merged into SU. The SU article already has a lot of international stuff in there. Maybe a better approach would be to make this article about secondary school student leadership generally,as it is already almost entirely about secondary schools, and move over the (very limited) relevant content from the other articles, rather than trying to merge everything into a clunky super-article. Robminchin (talk) 21:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for putting that together Isaac and FaviFake! I'd suggest one page for the actual leadership positions, but a different page for organizations. So Student council and Students' representative council could be merged separately. Students' union is a whole different concept and can stay on its own (but perhaps with Dutch Student Union merged there). Reywas92Talk 15:54, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

@Reywas92
That would help to clear up confusion. However, I wanted to note that there is a lot of overlap between these topics and terminology, as the terminology is loosy used by primary schools and universities. Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:52, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Student representative council is an article about students' unions at Scottish universities, which are known by that name. It doesn't have any relationship with student council, which says in its abstract that it is about K–12 schools (i.e., primary and secondary schools). Robminchin (talk) 21:10, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Considering things generally, I would suggest:
1. Separating out post-secondary and secondary organisations, as these are very different. There are already articles for students' union and student council that are primarily about higher education and schools respective. Making it explicit that the students' union article covers higher education and students council covers schools and shuffling content between them as necessary would help make things better organised.
2. Similarly, school roles, held by minors alongside their studies and with little real responsibility, and university roles, held by adults as a full-time job and with responsibility for budgets in the millions, are very different and should be kept separate. Student government president, which is almost entirely about higher education (albeit badly written and concentrating on the US) should be about higher education student leadership; this article seems a good place to start for school student leadership.
3. Consider merging articles on roles into the articles on the organisations. It is not clear that separate articles are needed for the student organisation and the leadership of that organisation. Robminchin (talk) 21:32, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin @Aloneinthewild @Reywas92 Thanks so much for partecipating. I very much agree with most if not all of your opinions, but honestly I'm having a hard time figuring out where you suggest merging exactly which pages into! Could you kindly create an additional proposal (especially Robminchin, who seems to have a very clear picture of the situation) similar to § Initial proposal, in which you list the pages you want merged and specify the target for each? I think it would really help us reach consensus if we don't have to vaguely argue about these already-confusing pagenames. For example:
Target Page One:
  1. List of...
  2. pages to...
  3. merge into Page One.
Target Page Two:
  1. etc.
Then we can work on these more "concrete" suggestions. Thanks so much! FaviFake (talk) 16:46, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
@Tacyarg and Amakuru: Thank you as well for participating. Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:22, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Merger of School Council

Courtesy ping: နေနီဝန်း Noting your recent edits to School Council, I wanted to let you know that there is a discussion taking place here regarding that page among others in a potential merger. Your input would be appreciated. Issac I Navarro (talk) 05:43, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh Thanks a lot! I should've found this page earlier. I've just added my opinion at Talk:School Council#Opposition to merging into other articles. I wonder whether I would get punished if I copied all of these into here. :)
နေနီဝန်း (talk) 06:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
@နေနီဝန်း Thank you, for having interest and wanting to work on cleaning this up. As @User:FaviFake point out above : " I don't think we should start new talk page sections for all these pages. It'd already be a pretty big feat if we manage to get consensus in this discussion, I can't imagine needing it to re-affirm it for each page. "
It may make it clearer if you have your reply here. Issac I Navarro (talk) 06:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
OK, I'll write it down again here but with some edits and additions. I see you all are discussing to merge the pages. But I want to request to maintain one of the pages.
The page School Council is for a regulated system for government schools in Myanmar. Note that we also have class student representatives such as class monitors and discipline monitors but they are different from the school council.
  • The School Councils in Myanmar are made up of all teachers and students chaired by the principal of the college or the head of the school. (But universities do not have any.)
  • They have house system in the entire school, not the representative of individual classes as there is another system of class representatives different from this system.
  • School Council houses have their flags raised on one side of the flag pole, under the national flag, and the lone flag on the other side signify the house on-duty. Regardless of the classes, all the students from each house in the entire school have to perform their house duties on the designated days (such as cleaning the toilets, taking out the rubbish bins, etc.) while the house teachers also have to do their house duties (such as patrolling, guarding the gate, etc.).
  • All school councils have the same mottos, customs and protocols regulated by the government's Ministry of Education, Department of Basic Education.
  • Apart from Education Degree Colleges, all other universities (including Universities of Education), colleges and higher education institutions do not have any "school council" or such kind of system. Instead, they can form clubs and groups as they pleased provided that the rector or the principal approves. Their class representatives, called "ECs" are elected or appointed or not appointed/elected at all, variedly without the strict protocols, unlike the "school council".
နေနီဝန်း (talk) 06:30, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
Also note that it's "School Council" not "students council" as it also includes teachers not just students. နေနီဝန်း (talk) 06:37, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
There is almost no resources about Myanmar school councils in English apart from the university textbooks. The Burmese resources are also rare to find. It would be better to maintain the page as it is so that we can later add more contributions and references to resources for the education university/college students who are learning about this system as part of their courses and have to do assignments or presentations about the School Council System in Myanmar. နေနီဝန်း (talk) 06:38, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I don’t quite understand this:
It would be better to maintain the page as it is so that we can later add more contributions and references [...]
New content and references can still be added, even if it is merged into another article (possibly not Student council?). What makes you think that adding contributions and references would become harder if the page is merged? FaviFake (talk) 09:54, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
It would be more difficult for readers to find and read about a specific body in a large article. We can make sections and subsections in separate articles for ease of reading and organizing; but when the articles themselves become sections, it would be quite messy, in my opinion. Of course, I oppose the merge with "student" council because school council is not just students. School Council (SC) is one of the management and administrative organs of Department of Basic Education (DBE) and consists of both teachers and students; the position of president is ex officio for the principal/head of school. Except in Education Degree Colleges (EDC), SC are not formed at the Higher Education level (university/college). The Basic Education Law (2019) legislated the basic education students' right to participate in School Council.
  • I've refined the article and added more verifiable sources and academic papers. I hope to improve it more in the future and invite the help of you all. - နေနီဝန်း (talk) 15:14, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
* School Council this is about student councils at schools in Malaysia. @Robminchin: I suggest reading the article (or at least, click) before claiming like this just from the name. School Council is one of the three organs at the school level of educational administration by the Department of Education of the Ministry of Education in Myanmar. It consists of all the students and all the teachers (neither just a group of students nor just for students). The president is non-elected ex officio position for the principal/headteacher of school; vice-president is an elected teacher. နေနီဝန်း (talk) 15:24, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
I'm sorry for getting Malaysia and Myanmar confused. However, from the description on the article I would say that this is a form of student participation in school administration that falls under the general heading of a student council. Robminchin (talk) 18:17, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
@Robminchin
To give my two cents, I agree with your take on this matter Robminchin.
From reading the page. it seems it ties into early talks that are above; similar to that of HB/HG. Issac I Navarro (talk) 20:45, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
I agree, it doesn't appear to be distinct enough. Readers are better served if this article is also merged. FaviFake (talk) 17:35, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Robminchin's proposal

This will, of course, require merger discussions specifically flagged at the affected pages.

Basic pages to keep, which are distinct concepts. Some of these may need to be re-focussed, however.

Organisations:

What merges into where may require some 'dirty' mergers in order to separate out higher education and school-level education, with some material being merged into different places. However, most of the pages are either about schools or higher education despite nominally trying to cover both. There are two possible routes here: 1. to merge officer roles into the page on the organisation type, or 2. to keep a separate page on the officer roles. The same route does not have to be taken at each level, but I would favour following 1. generally.

What to merge:

Merge into Students' union:

Possibly merge, or rename:

  • Student government president - this is almost entirely about higher education. Most of the content could be deleted and the rest merged. If not merged, rename to Students' union officers to make it more general and to tie it to the title of the other page.

Do not merge:

Merge into Common room (university):

  • Senior man - this is about a specific title used by the head of a small number of JCRs. There is no generic page on JCR presidents so it makes most sense to merge this directly into the organisation-type page.

Merge into Student council:

  • School Council - this is about student councils at schools in Malaysia

Possibly merge

  • Class president - almost entirely about school-level education. If not merged, rename to Student leaders at schools (or similar, e.g., Student officers at schools or Student council officers)
    • Student leader - there's a small amount here that's worth preserving. Merge into Student leaders at school or Student council, depending on decision above
    • Class officers - mostly about school-level education, although some references to US colleges. Also contains a lot of generalisation from individual sources to the general picture, which is probably original research. Merge into Student leaders at school or Student council, depending on decision above

Others:

  • Head Girl and Head Boy - keep, but ensure focus is on appointed roles. Usage of the title for elected student representatives should be under Student council, or the renamed Student leaders at schools. Possibly rename to something like School prefects if the mergers below are done.

Possibly merge into Head Girl and Head Boy:

  • Hall monitor - there is no evidence of notability, but if it exists, it belongs with the appointed roles
  • Prefect § Academic - again, belongs with the appointed roles

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Robminchin (talk • contribs)

@Robminchin Sounds good, and I agree.
I do slightly favor "2. to keep a separate page on the officer roles." though both of the approaches you suggest seem well thought out, and I ultimately support either one.
I also wanted to comment to ensure we don’t overlook any pages that might be relevant to this discussion. I’ve gone through Category:Student organizations, Category:Student government, and Category:Students' unions. As with your note on “Do not merge: Dutch Student Union - this is about a specific organisation, not about the concept” For instance, pages such as Student Chamber of the Council of Higher Education Institutions also should indeed remain standalone. I bring this up as some of these pages may overlap with how "Students' union -(will) focus on higher education institutions" Thus, some of these pages may benefit from attention to ensure they meet Wikipedia’s standards for quality and consistency following this merger taking place. Issac I Navarro (talk) 03:28, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks so much! I've read though it and I mostly support this proposal, choosing the option 1. to merge officer roles into the page on the organisation type and generally choosing to merge every time it is brought up as an option, to avoid additional confusion. The only thing I oppose is keeping Head Girl and Head Boy. With only a couple of references, the resulting text would be 1 paragraph or less. I think the page will get messier unless it's merged somwhere else, such as Student leaders at schools, and if needed a section can be created about that role of Head Girl and Head Boy specifically. FaviFake (talk) 16:15, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
I don't have a strong stance on HG/HB. However, the page at it's current time is very poor. And something must be done about it. Looking at a few school websites it seems that there is a difference, however as you suggest "merged somwhere else, such as Student leaders at schools" I agree on.
I was finding it difficult to find reliable sources as I am in the States. Thus, I might not be looking at the best search terms. From the information that I have seen, it seems that it is a role for school children. It could be sorted in either, Student council or Student leaders. Here are some of the sites I visited:
Issac I Navarro (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
The reason for keeping HG/HB separate was because these are positions appointed by school management (and traditionally responsible for helping teachers keep discipline in the school) rather than elected as part of student government, so don't really fit into Student council or Student leaders. As mentioned, Prefect#Academic and Hall monitor both also fall into this category and could probably be merged. Almost all information on the web seems to be about Harry Potter (although, to be fair, the use there was a reasonable reflection of British school usage). Robminchin (talk) 18:07, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
If not kept as a separate page, a better merge target for HG/HB (and Hall monitor) would be the Prefect#Academic section, as this is a title for the senior prefects. Robminchin (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah; while we understand the distinction, I don't think the article will remain so clearly-defined and limited in scope in the long run. Prefect § Academic seems indeed a better merge target! FaviFake (talk) 19:25, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
This will, of course, require merger discussions specifically flagged at the affected pages.
Oh, and one more thing: I don't think we should start new talk page sections for all these pages. It'd already be a pretty big feat if we manage to get consensus in this discussion, I can't imagine needing it to re-affirm it for each page.
They have all been notified, both on the article itself with a baner and on their talk pages (which isn't even required for mergers, see WP:MERGE). The centralised discussion is happening here and editors for these pages should join this one if they wish to oppose it or support it. --FaviFake (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Sorry for not being clear, I meant that the discussion needed to be specifically flagged on those pages as a merger discussion affecting those pages, which hadn't happened previously but it looks like you've just done - Thanks! Robminchin (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Oh right, thanks. Yes I did check just now. FaviFake (talk) 05:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Head girl and head boy

Hi @FaviFake: thanks for your close on this above, and by-and-large this seems good - hopefully a decent rationalisation of the different topics. However, I must take issue with your decision to merge and redirect the Head girl and head boyHead girl and head boy page. There have been several objections to this – by me following the initial merge made in October, and also by Issac I Navarro and Robminchin in the discussion above. Indeed, in your closing summary you yourself state that "I didn't find consensus for merging it".

Given that you have been almost the only editor strongly pushing the merger of that page, I feel like you are too WP:INVOLVED to have enacted a controversial close on the discussion in favour of the merge, and I'd request you please to undo that and restore it as a separate page. Once that's done we can hopefully draw a line under this. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:32, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

@Amakuru I agree! These discussions have stretched for a long time and, after my short hiatus from WP, I only read the discussion I was closing, which I now notice you didn't participate in, but forgot to re-read the previous discussion. Sorry about that. It might be the case that there is consensus against merging, if also considering the older discussions about HG/HB.  Merger undone.
Since we're here, what do you think of the current situation? HG/HB was merged into a different page (Prefect § Academic) than the one you opposed. Do you think other changes should be made, such as moving the content in Prefect § Academic to HG/HB and only leaving a WP:SUMMARY behind? FaviFake (talk) 13:18, 20 December 2025 (UTC)
@FaviFake: thanks for the revert. One thing that strikes me, looking at the present arrangement of pages, I think Prefect#Academic is really in the wrong place. That page is primarily about the prefect concept from Ancient Rome, with side-sections about the same concept translated to modern France, Albania etc. Which is fine, as a sort of WP:BROADCONCEPT page. But I don't think the academic usage of prefect fits into that at all. School prefects have almost nothing in common with Roman prefects other than sharing a name, and I think that section really should be split into its own article, Prefect (academic) or similar. Once that is done, I think at that point merging the Head girl and head boy page into the new separated prefect page becomes far less controversial; they are clearly intertwined in a way that they aren't to the Roman system. How does that sound? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2025 (UTC)
That sounds great! I agree the rest of the prefect page is completely unrelated. I'm eager to learn what @Robminchin and @Issac I Navarro think of it, in case they haven't seen this discussion? FaviFake (talk) 17:33, 21 December 2025 (UTC)
Pinging @Reywas92 @Tacyarg @Aloneinthewild @နေနီဝန်း to see if they wish to contribute more to the discussion. Issac I Navarro (talk) 20:46, 21 December 2025 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. I would go for "School prefect" as providing a more natural disambiguation, but that's a minor point. Robminchin (talk) 03:34, 22 December 2025 (UTC)
That's better, yes. FaviFake (talk) 09:42, 22 December 2025 (UTC)
That seems great to me, I completely agree that the Prefect § Academic dose not make sense there, also your reasoning would help clear up the confusion.
In slightly related matters I have began to work on Student council, and cleaning up and moving content that is higher education institutions to students' unions. I have added the tag {{Cleanup school}}, does anyone have any recommendations for cleaning up those two pages? Issac I Navarro (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2025 (UTC)
Alright, I've performed the WP:SECTIONMOVE from Prefect#Academic to Head girl and head boy and moved it to School prefect. Should we add a hatnote at the top like we did for Student council, and students' unions? FaviFake (talk) 18:20, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
@FaviFake Thumbs up iconYes; it seems like a good idea to add a hatnote. Issac I Navarro (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree. But what could it say? FaviFake (talk) 19:38, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
@FaviFake
I would suggest one of the following, depending on how broad it should be: either {{Similar names}} {{For}} or {{For-text}}. seems fine per WP:HATNOTE
  • Not to be confused with Prefect, a title in ancient Rome and in modern civil administration.
or something like
  • For the ancient Roman office and its modern civil equivalents, see Prefect. For student representative bodies, see Student council.
Issac I Navarro (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Hmm, I was thinking we could use {{about}} like the other two merge targets? I'm just not entirely sure how School prefect is different from the other two, i guess? FaviFake (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
@FaviFake
Thumbs up icon That seems great, that way it is like the other two merger targets. Issac I Navarro (talk) 16:43, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
@Amakuru or @Robminchin, do you have ideas for specific wording on a possible {{about}} template on school prefect? FaviFake (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
I swear this'll be the last time you'll be pinged for this mass merger! FaviFake (talk) 19:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
I'm not sure it needs a hatnote at all. Per WP:NOTAMBIGUOUS, there's no need for a hatnote unless a reader could end up on one page when looking for another one. As this is disambiguated as "school prefect", there's no need for a hatnote pointing back to "prefect" (although one might be wanted pointing the other way). "Student council" is a related topic rather than a page with a title that could be confused, so should be in the 'see also' links at the bottom of the article rather than in a hatnote, per WP:RELATED. Robminchin (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
There you go! We solved it. Thanks again! FaviFake (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

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