Mr. Alex Tetteh-Enyo, Minister of Education on Wednesday said government was keen in enacting the Freedom of Information Bill to promote a robust research environment and greater freedom that would ensure that adequate information was available to the public.
He has therefore tasked universities to effect changes and put proper structures in place to improve lecture-student relations and relationship between professors and junior lecturers.
The Minister made the remarks at the opening of an international workshop on Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy in West African Universities in Accra.
The workshop attended by academics, researchers, public intellectuals, administrators and activists is expected to discuss issues on institutional autonomy and individual academic freedom in West Africa and beyond.
It also seeks identify achievements, good practices and challenges facing academics in their quest to expand the frontiers of knowledge.
Mr Tetteh-Enyo said the dynamics of academic freedom had changed noting the government's responsibility of respecting academic freedom had been fulfilled.
The Minister noted that the duty of the state with respect to rights and freedom also covered the protection of academic freedom from unnecessary abuses by other forces.
"Government also has a duty to take pro-active steps to promote academic freedom. It is for these reasons and others that government was keen on enacting the Freedom of Information Bill which will offer greater access to promote a robust research environment and greater freedom to make such information available for public consumption," he said.
Mr. Tetteh-Enyo noted that the general freedom of expression for teachers and students was necessary for intellectual infrastructure, the mental development and intellectual creativity.
According to him, academic freedom should also encompass the freedom for scholars to decide research findings and to publicise their intellectual position.
He said academic freedom should also include the autonomy to shape the curriculum and syllabi, relative freedom to recruit teachers and the freedom to admit students by criteria chosen by universities.
The Minister noted that government had sometimes been seen as an impediment to the realisation of
academic freedom, adding with the political machinery
at its disposal, government could play a critical role
in letting academic flourish or flounder.
He said a lot of things had changed with the evolution of time, pointing out that academic freedom
in Ghana had reached the heights of respectability.
However, the Minister said, many facets of non state entities had become keen competitors and they sought to out-manoeuvre the state in its attempt to control and influence academics and buy their freedom.
Professor Goolam Mohamedbhai, Secretary-General, Association of African Universities noted that academic freedom and university autonomy were relevant not to Western African universities but universities around the world.
He observed that with the advent of globalisation, issues concerning higher education needed to be looked at not just at a national stand point but equally from regional and even international perspective.
He mentioned the diminishing public funding, increase in privatisation of higher education, unprecedented demand for access to higher education as some of the challenges facing universities.
Professor Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe, Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, in his welcoming address said academic freedom related to the larger freedom that a country could enjoy.
He said Ghana had been considered as a leader in championing academic freedom, adding that the University of Ghana had also embarked on internal measures towards that direction.
Prof. Tagoe said the university also has ensured that students were represented on all boards.