Importance Of Academic Freedom Essay

Let me begin my discussion regarding the academic freedom of students by adopting a passage that deals with the role that the educated young generation [students] can play for their country: “The fate and destiny of our country depends on what we do for the young. Our world is a horrible spectacle of undeveloped and misapplied possibilities …How many mute and glorious Miltons have died in silence, how many potential Newtons never learned to read? (quoted in Telila, 2010, p.55; emphasis added). This entails that because students are the matured and self-responsible individuals to be, there should be a favorable environment that enables them to use their full potential. One, probably the main, of the conditions which need to be fulfilled in the path to realize the full potential of students is the granting of freedom within in their schools, such as universities. To put it otherwise, the full development of humanity, with in a university setting, necessitates the granting of academic freedom not only for the educators, but also for the learners. In history, however, there were definitions given for academic freedom that excludes the freedom to be

Under the EPRDF government, students have been facing one of the most notorious violations of the rights to academic freedom and such an excessive violation of this freedom has started shortly after the Party came to power. Since students were active and vocal critics of government policies such as changes in education policy, denial of academic freedom, denial of publishing their newspaper, including the negative impact of economic policies, and “they have paid a heavy price for their dissent” (HRW, 2003, p. 13) although their questions were quite