Prime
In defence of academic freedom
Author: Moses Khisa. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- When a lecturer or professor goes against a normative standard and expected conduct, there is a system of peer-based accountability through which to litigate and remedy the situation.
Makerere University is a special place. It’s Uganda’s academic jewel, a giant widely recognised and highly respected. I am a proud alumnus. Wherever I go, I wear my Makerere badge with a deep sense of pride.
Makerere isn’t just our premier university, it’s arguably the only truly university campus where a broad range of activities, processes, and outcomes are possible within the spirit and praxis of a university.
Makerere has been many things that make it stand out with a precious place in the annals of African universities.
Some of the most famous and influential African thinkers who went on to conquer the world of scholarship and rise to the pinnace had their formative years at Makerere either as undergraduate students or young lecturers. The list is long, so I will not attempt to give names.
At least two former presidents in the East African sub-region graduated from Makerere. The current president opted for the University of Dar es Salam, but many of his commanders in the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) who helped him capture power came out of Makerere. Some headed to ‘bush’ to join the NRA the day they wrote their last exam!
What made Makerere stand out and establish an impeccable reputation is the culture and tradition of being a true university where students and teachers can pursue and express ideas unfettered. This norm and principle of academic freedom is core to what a university is about.
Academic freedom is part of a wider fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression that underpins progress, prosperity, and civic vitality. Even in so-called authoritarian states like China where there are substantial limits on free speech and other personal liberties, academic freedom tends to be relatively respected and upheld.
Central to academic freedom is the rule of letting university teachers decide what to teach, how to teach, what to examine and how, and what ideas and projects to research without undue external intrusion or influence, especially from the state. This does not by any means grant unlimited powers and unaccountable conduct to university academic staff. Far from it. There are all sorts of internal and inbuilt mechanisms for assuring accountability. Also, academics are generally expected to operate within certain confines and adhere to a set of norms and standards even if not expressly written and enforced.
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When a lecturer or professor goes against a normative standard and expected conduct, there is a system of peer-based accountability through which to litigate and remedy the situation. What’s more, students have every right to raise a formal complaint, including in confidence, against misconduct or dereliction of duty by a teacher. So, just like the broader freedom of speech, academic freedom too has limits. Our own 1995 constitution says as much.
In recent weeks, Makerere has been in the news over a most bizarre situation where the Vice Chancellor, the chief executive officer, wrote to the Acting Principal of the School of Law directing that a school examinations board meeting be convened to inquire into an undergraduate exam that had taken place.
It’s impossible to summarise the issue here, but the exam in question touched on top political leaders in Uganda, and depicted a hypothetical situation, with a good dose of parody, where a draconian law was irregularly passed, and asked students to address the constitutional implications. It appears that the individuals named in the hypothetical, parody exam who included the Speaker of Parliament, the President and First Lady may have directly or through their surrogates complained to the Vice Chancellor who, rather than stand on the side of his troops in defence of academic freedom, frantically wrote a letter that grossly offends the essence of a university.
Fortunately, the intrepid faculty members at the School of Law held firm, not for the first time, to be sure, and stood with their colleagues responsible for the exam at issue.
The two faculty members responsible for the exam, Joe Oloka-Onyango and Busingye Kabumba, are not just fine brains, they are also patently fair-minded. The former trained and mentored the latter. Both share an uncompromising commitment to independence of mind and defence of the common good.
There is no doubt that Dr Oloka-Onyango and Dr Kabumba are unapologetically critical of the current political status quo, but it doesn’t mean they are uncritical of the political opposition. Part of the problem with our politics is the fallacy that whoever criticises Mr Museveni’s regime ipso facto loves his opponents!
If Kampala Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago, engaged in excessive actions that raise constitutional issues, Dr Oloka-Onyango or Dr Kabumba would give students a similar parody exam for students to critically and thoughtfully articulate the constitutional implications.
Bottom-line is that Makerere’s current Vice Chancellor has been eerily hostile to the sanctity of academic freedom, and instead willing to acquiesce chipping away at the institutional autonomy of the university and free campus environment. I have written about this here before, but it is a subject worth revisiting, to which I shall return next week.
