SOUTH AFRICA: Academy defends academic freedom

The Academy of Sciences of South Africa has defended academic freedom it believes is under threat from intrusive government regulations, the "apparently excessive influence" of private sector sponsorships of universities and perceived limitations on free speech within universities. The academy represents the country's outstanding scientists.

In a statement released last Tuesday, the academy said that while the right of academics to criticise university administrations had been particularly contentious, "taken together these concerns suggest that the values entrenched in the constitution and in education practice are being eroded by government policy, funding agencies, sponsors and donors, and by institutional management".

The ASSAf, as the academy is known, said it believed lecturers and researchers should be free to follow their own ideas, arguments, insights and findings, conditional only on the avoidance of scholarly misconduct such as plagiarism, falsification of data and unethical research practice.

"The intellectual case for this is clear. Only open and unfettered inquiry by creative and highly trained professionals can deliver research of the highest quality," the academy said.

This work, it said, must be subjected to established testing and confirmation processes provided by peer review and publication in the open domain. "No interference can be permitted in the chain of intellectual authority that runs between researcher, reviewer and published result."

The academy pointed out that academic freedom had long been debated in South Africa. Under apartheid it was routinely violated in various ways, including through legislation that among other inequities restricted access to universities by black people.

In response, a strong tradition of activism in defense of academic freedom had taken root within some of South Africa's universities.

The ASSAf said inclusion of academic freedom and the freedom of scholarly research under the 'freedom of speech' clause in the South African Constitution of 1996 was one of the many reasons why the constitution was considered unique.

Academic freedom was identified as a core governance principle by the 1997 white paper on the transformation of higher education, and in 2008 it was tackled in a report by the Council on Higher Education, with whose conclusions the academy agreed.

Such freedom was not only constitutionally protected, the ASSAf statement added, but independent commentary was crucial to the evidence-based work of academies and in democratic South Africa, academic freedom in all higher education institutions was integral to the intellectual life of the country.

Yet 16 years into democracy continued threats to academic freedom showed the debate remained as relevant as ever.

The academy said the university and research community functioned best in a collegial system of governance and an intellectually free environment. Guided by enquiry and the quest for knowledge, administrators and academics should share the same principles in pursuit of the core mission of higher education and research.

"It is through high quality teaching and research, in a climate of academic freedom and social responsiveness, that higher education best fulfils its accountability to society," the statement said. The academy "deplored" any managerial or state policy that effectively limited open publication and discussion within higher education and research institutions.