By Nadine Alsaghir

Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) president Zain Baig attended a United Nations (UN) academic leadership summit in Geneva, Switzerland at the end of October.

Hosted by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the summit brought together educators and academics from across the globe.

According to its website, the summit aimed to shape the “future of education” by engaging in meaningful dialogue.

The discussions hosted at the summit will contribute to a UNITAR-led white paper with the theme Reimagining Employability in a Changing World. According to a September 2026 UNITAR white paper, this document will consolidate participants’ discussions around four key themes: AI governance, ethics and integration; international collaboration and capacity-building; future skills and employability; and well-being and human-centred learning.

Baig was invited to apply and submitted a formal application to participate. He said the opportunity to represent the TMSU at the summit was valuable and hopes the ideas developed through the forum prove useful to TMSU members.

According to Baig, previous Academic Leadership Suite cohorts have not included student union presidents or comparable student governance representatives.

“A lot of these professors or institutional leaders, they’re kind of removed from the student experience…They may not really resonate with what students have to say or fully understand the difficulties and issues that they face on a day-to-day basis. When you’re asking a student, they’re actually going through that experience,” he said.

Baig hopes to contribute to the white paper, adding that if he is successful, the union would be listed among the authors of the document. Adding that whether his presentation was included will be determined when the paper is released in December.

Baig’s goal is to discuss the union’s priorities at the UN, including affordable, equitable and inclusive access to post-secondary experiential learning and improved recognition of students’ skills.

“I think what made my application really compelling was that I was really emphasizing the fact that students are going to be affected by all of these decisions, so students should have some input in what is going to be laid out,” said Baig.

He also noted students should be able to proactively help institutions design new initiatives, rather than reactively provide feedback as “they wait until barriers are faced.”

Baig said attendees were receptive to his calls for greater student involvement in institution decision-making, with some expressing interest in reaching out to students more often for feedback.

During the forum, Baig shared two proposals as a guest speaker: his first, which he called the “Student Employability Compact,” would expand access to paid experiential learning through collaboration between universities, employers and students. His second was a portfolio model to help students demonstrate the skills they develop through project leadership and extracurricular involvement.

Through his first proposal, he emphasized the importance of tracking graduates’ employment outcomes and job satisfaction.

“But what is the point of going to university if you’re not setting these students up for success? The only way to measure that is by following up with them after they graduate and really just collecting all that information,” he added.

His second proposal focused on creating a certification system, which would allow students to showcase those skills on their resumes or LinkedIn profiles.

Baig said the forum inspired him to introduce a staff appreciation initiative at the TMSU, proposing four hours of paid time off to recognize employees’ contributions and prioritize their well-being. He said the proposal was approved by the executive committee shortly after his return, with details still being finalized.

Baig also said the forum reinforced his commitment to creating more paid employment opportunities for students through TMSU.

“I want to prioritize hiring TMSU students for paid work, part-time work…I’ve been writing reference letters for some of our volunteers, and I want to continue doing that to help them in their career in any way that I can,” Baig said.