UNIVERSITY BILL IS CRITICISED IN AUCKLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18578, 28 September 1928, Page 5

UNIVERSITY BILL IS CRITICISED IN AUCKLAND.

“A SERIOUS THREAT TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”

(Special to the “Star.”) AUCKLAND, September 27.

The Auckland University College Professorial Board this morning considered the provisions of the New Zealand University Act Amendment Bill. 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 other educational bodies associated with the University, finds itself in complete disagreement with the Alinister. They concern the whole question of academic freedom versus departmental control and seriously endanger local autonomy and development.

“The proposals are absolutely unprecedented in British, communities. It is a foundation principle of British University administration that developments of policy should be in the hands of the university authorities, unfettered by political control.

“ The Bill provides for a 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, a measure of control of this matter is vested in the University Council, a nationally representative body. To subordinate this authority to that of the Education Department is radically opposed to the commission’s recommendations, 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 paralysing local initiative and hinder ing local development in the face of the considered and impartial judgment of an expert and a thoroughly representative body such 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, indirectly with all manner of detailed questions of educational policy on which the University itself is the oSvious authority. “ The only possible justification for summary legislation on such a question in,the last few days of the Parliamentary session would be that the measure was one agreed upon by all interests concerned. It has even, according to a Press report, been suggested by the Minister that this is so in the present case. Sq 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. Under these circumstances it is impossible that important interests which have views opposed to those of the department should have sufficient opportunity of presenting their opinions so that the highly contentious issues raised by the Bill should be adequately dealt with. The board feels most strongly that the Bill embodies a very serious threat to academic freedom.’*