In 1988, the World University Service formulated the Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom and the Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education. This seeks to promote and protect the right to education, the freedom to teach, and the freedom to pursue, develop and transmit knowledge. Since then WUS and Zed Books have published a series of reports on specific countries failures to deliver the right to education, abuses of the rights of people in the educational sector generally and infringments of academic freedom and university autonomy.
Academic Freedom 4, the most recent volume in the series, offers an overview of the international standards in this field and spells out the obligations of states in guaranteeing the educational rights of citizens. The reports on specific countries show the wide range of obstacles standing in the way of a full realization of the right to education. Several chapters analyse how disinvestment in education has undermined this right, particularly for women and minorities. In several parts of the world, structural adjustment programmes go hand in hand with stricter government control (including censorship) of universities, while in others, the control of education by religious groups has emerged as a new challenge, affecting both the quality of education and the level of tolerance in society. Other reports show why two factors, the existence of highly educated refugees and the globalization of the world economy, demand a much wider international recognition of educational qualifications.
This series constitutes a timely addition to continuing discourses about democratic development, human rights, civil society and human resource development. It finally disabuses anyone still harbouring any lingering romantic notions about intellectual ivory towers: conflict over 'academic' freedom is immediate, ubiquitous and dangerous.
