In defence of university autonomy and academic freedom

August 1, 2012, 6:51 pm 

By Prof. Wiswa Warnapala, the island

Continued from yesterday’s Midweek

University is an institution, which cannot discharge its functions and responsibilities without a measure of freedom. In Sri Lanka, as in other developing countries, Universities attract public attention and all governments are concerned with the cost of expansion. The critics, as usual, look for problems in university administration, and the Treasury imposes controls on university expenditure; all these criticisms and controls are viewed as attempts to interfere in the manner they manage their affairs. It was the high cost of university education which calls for the introduction of new patterns of university government, and the UGC was invented to bring about a compromise between control and autonomy. Control, and political interference, to be exact Ministerial control, was avoided by the UGC, which, of course, was the instrument of governmental policy. UGC is the best guarantee against overt attempts by politicians to interfere in the affairs of the Universities. Ideally, as Lord Annan said, "the UGC must be able to absorb all the political pressures and shocks in the form of a buffer." It will be for the UGC to decide which pressures are unreasonable and which ought to be transmitted to the universities.

Hence, the accepted position of the UGC is that of a "buffer" between the government and the universities interpreting each party to the other. According to the British tradition, the UGC is independent of the universities, though most of its members are academics of repute, and it is also, for the most part, independent of the government; it is the accepted source of expert advice on university affairs, including the allocation of resources which the government made available. From the point of view of universities, it is the effective medium for representing their opinions and needs of the Government. Therefore, the creation of the UGC, which has been emulated by all the Commonwealth countries, has been regarded as an "eminently successful example of administrative ingenuity". This function can only be performed by the UGC which enjoys the confidence and respect of both the government and the universities. In the Sri Lankan context, it is not easy to satisfy the two institutions mentioned above. In the United Kingdom, it began in 1919 as a channel of communication between the state and the universities, and the specific function was to interpret to the government of the policies and financial needs of the universities. Later, as in Sri Lanka, it was called upon to plan their development, and it was here that the government adhered to the fundamental principles of academic freedom and autonomy. The Report of the UGC of the United Kingdom (1947) stated that "education and research in the universities of this country are not functions of the State". It further stated that "it was essentially one of a partnership between Universities and State". The general character of this relationship came to be substantially changed during the post-war period in the UK.

Academic freedom misunderstood

Universities have a form of self-government, and it is the concept of academic freedom that has created so much of misunderstanding in Sri Lanka. Academic freedom is an essential element in the conception of a university which surfaced during the middle ages. From the very inception, universities around the world enjoyed the right to manage their affairs and to decide on what to teach. Universities, thus, enjoyed a unique kind of freedom, but it, however, did not mean that they could teach or write anything they liked, for example they could not offend the Church as in the case of Galileo. It did not mean that the governments could not interfere with the universities but there were accepted parameters within which it was done. Academic freedom and university autonomy are, therefore, intertwined principles which recognize the right to teach what and to whom; four kinds of freedom came to be associated with a university. Firstly the selection of students who are fit for higher education, next, the freedom to appoint its academic staff; thirdly to determine the standards of attainment and the nature and content of courses offered, and last, to determine its size and growth. As in teaching, there is similar freedom in research. All these rights and freedoms are qualified as the rights of an individual in the modern state.

The central idea of the university is the pursuit of knowledge. However, a university is not just an institution of higher education, but a center of learning. It requires its teachers to carry out research if the main function of the university is to be realized. In Sri Lanka, the funds for research are limited as there are no organizations to sponsor research, and this, in my view, is a matter which interferes with the quality and quantity of research in the universities. However, the threat to academic freedom emanates from those in power who wish to control thought, and prescribe opinion on matters related to the production of knowledge; secondly, it emanates from those in power who, for different reasons, want to control the other academic roles of academics, and interference in respect of this role comes from inside the University as well as from outside. In my own personal experience, such attempts to restrict academic freedom fell within this category. Therefore, the concept of academic freedom is central to the life of a university. If knowledge is to be refined for the benefit of the society, it is only through an institution that it can be profitably achieved, and the university, therefore, cannot play its central role without freedom and autonomy.

Public discourse on university education

Today, in Sri Lanka, there is a public discourse on certain aspects of university education in the country. The significance of this issue lies not so much in the profundity of the changes which the system produced in the last fifty years but in the convulsions of the current system. The growing public interest in the universities of the country is largely due to the realization that the university system can make a unique contribution to the national development of the country. The conception that the university education is essentially for a small and privileged class is now redundant. The need for social justice for all classes of people had opened the doors of the universities more widely than in the period in which it came into being. The Sri Lankan state has given substantial support to expand access of higher educational opportunities. However, this phase of development is currently entering a period beset with obstacles and difficulties which need immediate attention of the state.

In the last three or four decades, there was a considerable expansion in the intake which, of course, was stimulated by a great demand for higher education. The rapid increase in the number of students, which had taken place in the sixties, was not simultaneously accompanied by a concentrated attention on quality. It was in the last decade that a major effort has been invested in this direction, and the very process of transformation was accelerated in the last few years. It was the exhortation of this policy which called upon the universities to devote their energies to improving the quality of education offered to the students. This had to be done notwithstanding the increasing pressure for the expansion of the intake.

Continued tomorrow