Every academic institution, be it high school, or university has different means of evaluating the student’s dexterity and ability about how much they have comprehended from the classes and other intellectual sessions. To measure the same, they either delegate assignments, take quizzes and exams or take an oral examination called viva to figure out whether the students learnt anything or not.
Usually, most institutions give assignments to students because they are more subjective than any other means of assessment and need best assignment help UK
based ever than before. It not only fosters the student’s learning but also helps the teachers in evaluating their teaching methods.
What is meant by Academic Freedom?
Academic freedom is a contentious and hotly debated idea in higher education generally, and especially in American faith-based institutions. Accounting dissertation help and Academic independence has many different meanings. For instance, Barnett boils down his idea of academic freedom into a single guiding principle:
“That academic activities, carried out in academic contexts, by scholarly persons, should be ultimately governed by those academic persons.” Tight, on the other hand, provides a definition that is far more thorough and makes mention of important information and the obligations of academics.
What is the government doing for Academic Freedom?
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill of the UK government is now making its way through Parliament. In response to “the growth of intolerance and cancel culture upon our campuses,” as former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has put it, the law is intended to strengthen free speech and academic freedom in higher education.
A rising authoritarianism among some political activists both inside and outside of universities has presented new risks to academic freedom in recent years. These threats have been made worse by the potential that social media and global connectedness offer for regulating speech and research. Institutions have had difficulty comprehending and addressing these fresh concerns.
Freedom Of Expression And The Classroom
The paper’s discussion of the concepts of academic freedom and free speech is interwoven in important ways in universities despite the fact that they are conceptually distinct from one another.
In higher education, academic freedom is sometimes referred to as a “foundational virtue” and is protected by the charters and statutes of the majority of universities (Harland and Pickering, 2010; Davies, 2015). In the UK, section of the Education Reform Act of 1988 serves as the legal foundation for the related rights and obligations.
; In accordance with the law, academic personnel are free to challenge conventional thinking, present novel viewpoints that may be controversial or unpopular, and do so without running the risk of losing their jobs or other privileges they may hold at their institutions.’ (Judith Suissa, 2022)
Academic freedom is commonly understood to operate at the level of the institution, safeguarding the autonomy of universities against interference from governments and other external agents. This level of protection for individual academics from unwarranted employer interference is in addition to this level of protection.
The Growing Emphasis On Academic Independence At The Moment
Following the 9/11 attacks in the USA, there have been concerns in higher education generally that government legislation relating to terrorism on both sides of the Atlantic has resulted in an erosion of academic freedom. The establishment of Academics for Academic Freedom in 2006 enhanced the profile of academic freedom in the United Kingdom.
Recent presentations at a range of prestigious discussion groups in the United Kingdom and conferences with international audiences have made it clear that academic freedom is currently being scrutinised inside the academia.
The 1940 Declaration of Academic Freedom and Tenure
The benchmark is the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
American definition of academic freedom. The declaration, which emerged from the American Association of University Professors’ founding in 1915, claims that academic freedom extends to both teaching and research and that it is therefore crucial to the pursuit of knowledge and the common good in society. (Discovery, n.d.)
Academic freedom was considered as being essential to the defence of the rights of the instructor and teaching, as well as the student and learning, reflecting the ideas of Lehrfreiheit.
Three principles make up the Statement’s definition of academic freedom. The first principle pertains to an academic’s freedom of inquiry, research, and publication of findings, subject to fulfilling other academic obligations. Research incentives were to be agreed with the university.
The freedom an academic has when it comes to their teaching within the institution is the subject of the second principle. In their specific fields of competence, academics have the professional liberty to choose the topics for their classes.
Although the article emphasises that instructors are entitled to the freedom to speak their subject in the classroom, there are caveats in principle two, which warn that “they should be careful not to introduce into their instruction contentious matter which has no link to their subject.”
The 1970 Interpretive Comments touch on the distinction between expressing opinions based on one’s knowledge of a particular subject and those that are personal and thus a part of free speech, while asserting that The statement’s intention is “not to discourage what is “controversial,”” according to it.
The phrase “in the heart of the open academic inquiry” is used to describe controversy, however the passage helps to highlight the need for teachers to refrain from introducing material that is constantly unrelated to their subject.
How much the United Kingdom prefers academic freedom?
In the United Kingdom, the state and Academic freedom is threatened by institutional autonomy and conflicts between the state’s interference in higher education . Scott remarks on the “erosion of university’s autonomy as more and more elaborate control systems were imposed by the state” in relation to the rise of mass higher education and the altering character of financing councils.
Conclusion
University may sound like a lot of fun, but I can assure you that every day as you make your way to the same miserable classroom, you wish you were hit by a truck. I’m not being negative, but because of teachers like mine, I had to get assistance from an essay writing service UK every other day in order to submit my essay. (PES-ADMIN, 2019)
If I hadn’t, I’m sure I would have been expelled from the class. Every semester began with a prayer for it to end quickly, and it concluded with excruciating dread about the upcoming research I had to undertake.
References
Discovery. (n.d.). Conceptions of Academic Freedom in English. Retrieved from https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10018660/1/Carol%20Precious%20EdD%20thesis%20final.pdf
Judith Suissa. (2022, September 18). How can universities promote academic freedom? Insights from the front line of the gender wars. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2048-416X.2022.12007.x
PES-ADMIN. (2019, September 25). Choosing A Research Topic Made Easier A List Of 120 Research Topics. Retrieved from https://www.professionalessayservice.co.uk/choosing-a-research-topic-made-easier-a-list-of-120-research-topics/
