The ACHRS wrote a letter to the UNESCO National Commission in Jordan, in order to highlight the importance of Academic Freedom and International Higher Education Value, in view of the upcoming UNESCO World Conferene on Highter Education, to be held in Paris in July.
Hereby you can find the text of the letter and a platform written by Scholar at Risk Network and Network for Education and Academic Right.
THE LETTER
Dear Dr. Tayseer Alnoaimi, The Arab Society for Academic Freedom would like to call your attention to an important issue: the World Conference on Higher Education to be held in Paris from 5-8 July 2009. The theme of this year’s conference "The New Dynamics of Higher Education" will follow suit of the 1998 World Conference which was imperative in recognizing academic freedom and other rights as crucial to establishing and maintaining respect for educational values. We ask that you consider the significance and necessity of this conference and actively support the 2009 session to be held in Paris this July. Values of higher education, including academic liberty, revere for human rights, and institutional autonomy, are fundamental values that our society must continue uphold as a part of our social responsibility. Included with this letter you will find a platform highlighting International Higher Education Value written by the Scholars at Risk Network and Network for Education and Academic Right, and we would like to support them in this initiative. We would appreciate if you could take these documents into consideration for the successful execution of this conference.
Thank you for your attention.
Platform on International Higher Education Values
Prepared in anticipation of the World Conference on Higher Education, 5-7 July 2009
IntroductionThe 1998 World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) emphasized the importance of higher education "as a key factor for the cultural, social and economic development of nations and people, as an endogenous capacity-builder, as a promoter of human rights, sustainable development, international intellectual solidarity, democracy, peace and justice." Higher education values–academic freedom, institutional autonomy and social responsibility, including respect for human rights–were a major thematic discussion and an important component of the concluding plan of action forming the basis of UNESCO’s activities in higher education in the decade since.As stakeholders in the international higher education community, we respectfully urge UNESCO to ensure that higher education values remain a major theme of the upcoming WCHE 2009, as well as a part of any resulting plan of action and follow-on activities. We agree with the first planning statement on the WCHE that "the higher education policy agenda has considerably evolved since 1998", that "the sector is more than ever a priority for tomorrow", and that "higher education faces many challenges – recurrent and more recent ones – whose in-depth understanding will help to shape action at the global, regional, national and institutional level."Constructive, long-term solutions to these challenges, however, require deep commitment to core international higher education values–including academic freedom; institutional autonomy; access; accountability and transparency; quality; social responsibility and respect for human rights. Approaches to these "new dynamics" that fail to ensure respect for core values risk fragmenting the sector and undermining its ability to contribute to society. Approaches that respect core values will both strengthen the higher education sector and reinforce its capacity to advance knowledge and contribute to the betterment of society for the benefit of all persons, everywhere. Common platformWe respectfully and in a spirit of cooperative, positive intervention urge UNESCO, the WCHE 2009 organizers and participants to ensure that discussion of and activities for promoting core higher education values again be given prominence in the program for the WCHE 2009, as they were in 1998, including specifically: 1. Activities within the higher education sector and with the support of UNESCO toward the implementation of internationally recognized standards of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, social responsibility and related higher education values, including both (a) Further dissemination of the 1997 Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel and (b) Further dissemination of information about existing mechanisms for ensuring such standards are put into place at national and international levels. 2. Discussion and activities with regard to UNESCO’s efforts to promote and defend the human rights of members of higher education communities, including their academic freedom, including both (a) Further discussion and activities, including training activities, with regard to UNESCO’s complaint procedures relating to breaches of academic freedom and the human rights of members of higher education communities and (b) Review of the steps taken to involve organizations that represent higher education communities, including NGOs, association, societies, unions and other stakeholders, in activities aimed at promoting and defending their human rights, including their academic freedom. 3. Leadership from UNESCO, in the form of a directive or other broadly distributed statement and related activities, on the responsibility of the higher education sector to assist higher education professionals displaced by threats experienced in their own countries, including threats of an individual or collective nature, including both (a) A recognition of threats experienced globally and the general responsibility of the higher education sector to assist in solidarity; and(b) Specific recognition of the grave threats and many thousands of refugee scholars from Iraq, including by adopting a special plan of action for Iraqi academics, beginning with the recommendations on the future of Iraqi education developed by the UNESCO Conference on the Right to Education in Crisis Affected Countries, held in Paris 20 October – 1 November 2008 (Appendix), with special emphasis on the strengthening of universities (recommendations 4-7) and protection of Iraqi higher education institutions and personnel (recommendations 8-11). 4. Leadership from UNESCO in establishing an annual International Academic Freedom Day to highlight the importance of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and social responsibility not only for the education sector but for all members of society. Like World Press Freedom Day, a day celebrating these core values will encourage greater public understanding. By emphasizing public responsibility for these values, it will complement and reinforce efforts to support education institutions and professionals worldwide, including the highly successful World Teachers’ Day.
