Te Kaupapa Whaioranga - Academic Freedom

MANA ATUA, MANA TANGATA

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Decision-making must be democratic, equitable and inclusive.

MANA WHENUA Tertiary education should foster a sense of belonging, innovation and creativity.

MANA MOTUHAKE Staff and students must have authority and influence over their work. Tertiary education institutions and their people must act as a critic and conscience of society.

AHU KĀWANATANGA

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Staff and students must be able to collaborate and share their collective work with their communities.

MANA TIRITI

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Tertiary education should promote participation, protection and partnership for all people.

Our public tertiary education system belongs to all New Zealanders.

We must ensure that tertiary education provision receives adequate funding at all levels, in all communities, and for all learners, whatever their current skill, aptitude and knowledge levels.

We must ensure that within our tertiary education institutions all staff and students have responsible autonomy and academic freedom.

READ TE KAUPAPA WHAIORANGA: TEU.AC.NZ/BLUEPRINT

The Five Principles of Te Kaupapa Whaioranga

Te Kaupapa Whaioranga: ThetheBlueprint for Māori freedom academicEducation for Tertiary

Te Kaupapa Whaioranga - the blueprint for academic freedom In Te Kaupapa Whaioranga: the blueprint for tertiary education, the TEU argues for the importance of reclaiming the public good role of our tertiary education institutions:

“… the system belongs to all of us, we all contribute to it, and we are all responsible for it.”1 In New Zealand part of this public good role is the ability for staff and students to responsibly undertake their critic and conscience duties, by virtue of the academic freedom that is held by tertiary education institutions.2

What is academic freedom?

Academic freedom is conferred upon all academic staff and students, with a specific role of critic and conscience conferred upon university academic staff and students.3 The critic and conscience role is also available to academic staff and students of wānanga, polytechnics and other institutions where the institution accepts this responsibility. 4 In New Zealand the right to academic freedom includes: a.

the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions;

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Tertiary Education Union 2013 Te Kaupapa Whaioranga: the blueprint for tertiary education Education Act 1989 sec 161 and 162 This role is delegated by the institution to staff.

For example, by including this in its institutional charter

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b.

the freedom of academic staff and students to engage in research;

c.

the freedom of the institution and its staff to regulate the subject matter of courses taught at the institution;

d.

the freedom of the institution and its staff to teach and assess students in the manner they consider best promotes learning; and

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the freedom of the institution through its chief executive to appoint its own staff.5

Similar roles and responsibilities are recognised internationally as being essential for the operation of tertiary education institutions. UNESCO notes the importance of academics being able to ‘teach without interference, subject to accepted professional principles including professional responsibility and intellectual rigour with regard to standards and methods of teaching.’ Added to this, UNESCO notes that academics ‘should not be forced to instruct against their own best knowledge and conscience or be forced to use curricula and methods contrary to national and international human rights standards.’

UNESCO also affirms the importance of academic staff having ‘a significant role in determining the curriculum’ and having the ‘right to carry out research work without any interference, or any suppression, in accordance with their professional responsibility and subject to nationally 5

Education Act 1989 section 161

and internationally recognised professional principles of intellectual rigour, scientific inquiry and research ethics.’

The right to publish and communicate any conclusions of research undertaken and to participate in external professional activities is also noted as crucial to the function of academic freedom.6 These freedoms which enable the critic and conscience function in tertiary education institutions are set out in New Zealand legislation. Staff and students have the right to: a.

Question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions;

b.

Participate in the teaching and learning process free from constraints by political, commercial and other interests;

c.

Undertake research unconstrained by political, commercial, or other interests, and to freely disseminate these research findings.

The ability of staff and students to fulfill the critic and conscience role also requires freedom from institutional censorship, the right to express opinions publicly about the institution in which an academic or student works or studies, and about the education system in general.

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UNESCO 1997 Recommendation Concerning the Staus of Higher Education Personnel http://portal. unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13144&URL_ DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

We are at a crossroads In New Zealand academic freedom and the critic and conscience role are threatened by funding systems that are increasingly prone to manipulation from both government and commercial interests. That pressure is sometimes overt, but more often found in rules and processes which encourage conformity, resigned acceptance, risk aversion, and silence. This puts us at a crossroad.

One road recognises that tertiary education exists firstly to benefit society, and that those working in the sector can be trusted to carry out their respective roles for the wellbeing of students and communities, and to responsibly exercise their critic and conscience function.

The other road sees academic inquiry being used primarily for ‘improving New Zealand’s economic outcomes’ 7 with minimum critique of how this is achieved. This second road is focused on “employment, higher incomes, and better access to skilled employees for business”. It has measured outputs such as high graduate numbers, retentions and, qualification completions, with today’s tertiary education institutions more closely modelled on business structures rather than academic and collegial models. It is a road that relies on high levels of staff management and less academic selfdetermination in choosing and regulating subject matter in teaching and what might be researched.

If we continue down a road that sees academic inquiry as being primarily an economic service, we risk it increasingly becoming a tool that serves only business and government. This means we lose research, teaching, and knowledge generation opportunities that meet broad social and human goals.

This crossroads means there is an urgent need to take a stand in support of the importance of academic freedom and the role of critic and conscience.

of all those who are active scholars as demonstrated by their teaching, research and study, irrespective of the type of institution in which they work or their occupational category.

A move to funding that protects academic freedom The current funding model allows the government to have a significant role ‘steering’ the tertiary education sector, both in terms of general priorities (e.g., a stronger focus on economic outcomes for the sector) and more specific funding decisions (such as the decision not to include Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga – the Māori Centre for Research Excellence – in the confirmed list of six research centres for funding from 2015-2020 8). A more precarious and contested funding environment impacts on permanent employment, workloads, and other employment conditions, which in turn affect the ability of staff to exercise their critic and conscience role.

Government and TEIs must ensure that an environment is created that enables responsible enactment of the critic and conscience role: 1.

The way institutions are funded should explicitly recognise the contribution of critic and conscience of society (as is the case for research and teaching outcomes). This includes adequate baseline funding for investigatordriven inquiry, research, and study across the tertiary education sector.

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The level of funding should increase to ensure that the vital function of critic and conscience is not put at risk:

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Institutions need ongoing funding so they are not under pressure to limit costs by hiring casual and part-time employees. While casual staff may meet the immediate needs of a department or school, their precarious employment limits not only their opportunities for stable career paths, it makes it harder for them to speak freely as critic and conscience as they fear their insecure employment agreements will be under threat if they are outspoken.

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The centre is able to apply to a contestable fund for funding after 2015, however the decision not to fund it in the first group of six CoREs means funding is not assured for the five years beyond 2015.

Preserving academic freedom and the role of critic and conscience Protecting academic freedom and asserting critic and conscience must first and foremost relate to scholarship, and so may not necessarily relate to individual occupational categories.

We make our claims for academic freedom on behalf 7

Ministry of Education. 2014. Tertiary Education Strategy, 2014-19 page 2

Design credits: Ian Barnard for blueprint background www.ianbarnard.co.uk/freeblueprint-style-background-vector/ Vector.me for the pen image vector.me/browse/129044/set_of_realistic_ pencil Russell Street for the blue sky https://www.flickr.com/photos/ russellstreet/6733992355

b.

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The student-staff ratio must be reduced to levels which reflect the best traditions of effective pedagogy and realistic workloads as outlined in Te Kaupapa Whaioranga: the blueprint for tertiary education. Workload pressure can make it more difficult for an academic to devote time for the critical reflection needed to fulfill the critic and conscience role.

Funding for government and institutional priority research and subject preferences must not deny the academic freedom to pursue research outside these designated priority areas.

Protecting the role of academic staff in decision-making

The greatest challenge to academic freedom is discomfort. The comfortable answers may be wrong and it is important that we test them. It is tempting to find reasons to prevent the asking of difficult questions: we must retain the right to to make the world uncomfortable.

Dr. Craig Marshall

Academic staff must be trusted to be ‘critic and conscience’ of society. Tertiary education institutions must go beyond tolerating the expression of uncomfortable opinions. Such expression should be the social norm. It should be commonplace for academic staff and students to question a topic of social, political, and economic interest. It is the obligation of all tertiary education institutions to provide an environment that enhances academic freedom and supports staff stating and publishing views that may critique their institution, political and economic interests, or society more generally.

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If we expect professional and responsible behaviour, institutions and their managers must treat academics and other staff as trusted professionals, able to make responsible collegial decisions. We should reflect this commitment in institutional performance objectives and institutional charters.

2.

We need to review the extent to which the voice and expertise of academics and other staff is utilised to shape policy (particularly research and teaching policies) at the institutional, faculty, school and departmental level.

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Legislation should be amended to extend the role of critic and conscience to scholars in all tertiary education institutions.