UNIVERSITY CONTROL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3890, 2 October 1928, Page 14

UNIVERSITY CONTROL.

PROPOSALS OF AMENDING BILL.. ACADEMIC FREEDOM ENDANGERED. AUCKLAND, September 27. The Auckland University College Professorial Board considered the provisions of the New Zealand University Amendment Bill, telegraphed summaries of which have recently appeared in the press. The following statement has been issued by the board: — “ In the board’s opinion the measure raises certain vital questions of educational principle on which the board, in common with all the other educational bodies associated with the University, finds itself in complete disagreement with the Minister. . They concern the whole question of academic freedom versus departmental control, seriously endangering local autonomy and development. The proposals are absolutely unprecedented in British communities. It is a foundation principle of British university administration that develop-: ments of policy should be in the hands of the University authorities, unfettered by political control. “ The Bill provides for the veto by the Minister upon the creation of new chairs at any of the affiliated colleges. In the existing Act, adopted on the recommendations of the recent Royal Commission on the university system, the unit of control in this matter is a nationally representative body. To subordinate this authority to that of the Education Department is radically op? posed to the commission’s recomm'endations, which embodied the accepted practice throughout the British Empire. The proposed veto obviously renders possible political control in a particularly objectionable form, since it gives the department the means of paralysising local initiative and hindering local develop? ment in the face of the considered and impartial judgment of an expert and thoroughly representative body sueh as the University Council. “A further indication of the underlying tendencies of this measure is to be found in the substitution of an annual appropriation for the university in place of the existing statutory grant. This opens the way to vexatious interference by departmental officials directly with expenditure and indirectly with all manner of detailed questions of educational policy on which the university itself is the obvious authority. “ The only possible justification for summary legislation on such a question in the last few days of a parliamentary session would be that the measure was agreed upon by all the interests concerned. It has, according to the press reports, even been suggested by the Alinistei that this is so in the present case. So far is- this from being in accordance with fact that the proposals to which we have referred have been the subject of repeated and emphatic protest on the part of the University Council and the councils and professorial boards of the four colleges. The board wishes to register on its own account a -strong protest against its non-receipt of a copy of the Bill in spite of repeated promises from the department that a copy would be forwarded as soon as the Bill was introduced into the House. In these circumstances it is impossible that important interests which have views opposed to the department should have a sufficient opportunity of presenting their opihions so that the highly contentious issues raised by the Bill should be adequately dealt with. board feels most strongly that the Bill einbodies a very' serious threat to academic freedom.”