Lecturers concerned about academic freedom are meeting at Rhodes this week to debate whether the government has interfered too much in higher education.
Lecturers concerned about academic freedom are meeting at Rhodes this week to debate whether the government has interfered too much in higher education.
Their ongoing discussions there will be two more of these meetings centre on the report by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) which asked a task team to investigate the line between government regulation and government interference.
At stake for academics is how they think about and take responsibility for the fact that the higher education system in South Africa is failing to help transform society.
Dr Saleem Badat, Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes and convenor of the task team, said in his opening speech: “It’s not just about attending lectures on time and teaching, but it’s a political agenda as well.
It’s time to de-gender, de-racialise and decolonise”. Badat believes that intellectual laziness preventedthe task team from working harder to change the politics of higher education.
Prof Jìmí Adésínà of the Rhodes University Sociology Department has a more radical view on the debate. He wants a rethinking of the core of education.
This would entail access to ideas and the right to learn and teach in dignity. “This would be a change from the discriminatory values of the institutionalised racist order which denies a free flow of ideas.”
His presentation focused on the social responsibility and social accountability of intellectuals. Among other things, Adésínà highlighted the responsibility of academics to “give up everything in the name of freedom, not for their benefit, but for the benefit of others”.
Prof André du Toit, a retired professor from the Political Studies Department at UCT and an outspoken proponent of academic freedom, says: “Higher education should not be dictated by the state; it should be an interactive process where the state steers and guides our decisions.”
The academics, from five universities and across the humanities disciplines, will continue the contentious debate around academic freedom.
Organiser of the event, Dr Pedro Tabensky from the Philosophy Department at Rhodes, sees the lectures as a wonderful way to seriously engage academics on this important issue, and adds: “Perhaps our fundamental aim is indeed excellence and nothing more, and only academic institutions know best how to serve these ends.”
Tabensky believes that the academic community should take the lead in accelerating transformation instead of relying on the government.
The conversation will continue later this year, as Badat said in his opening words: “There is no shortage of issues.
We therefore needed to assemble leading scholars to tackle issues surrounding education in order to move forward.” The series of lectures began on Wednesday at the Continuing Education Centre (CEC) and will end today at 3pm.
