Academic Freedom Index 2020 | UPSC
HEADLINES:
Academia and the free will
WHY IN NEWS:
India’s dismal score on the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) reflects the issues plaguing the country’s education system
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 3:Reports
LEARNING:
For PRELIMS it is important to remember the publisher and the key parameters or methodology and its calculation .
For MAINS this is an important report for you to compare global universities . Note down the key recommendations and give a thought about it . Let us dive in !
ISSUE:
- Academic freedom is fundamental to scientific progress, the pursuit of truth, research collaboration, and quality higher education.
- It provides opportunity for policy debates among government officials, parliamentarians, research funders, university administrators, academics, students, and advocates alike.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM INDEX 2020
- The AFi aims to inform stakeholders, provide monitoring yardsticks, alter incentive structures and challenge university rankings.
- AFi scores are based on expert assessments by 1,810 scholars around the world which are integrated in a Bayesian measurement model.
TITLE
FREE UNIVERSITIES : Putting the Academic Freedom Index Into Action
PUBLISHED BY
Report is the result of a collaborative effort between researchers at:
- Friedrich Alexander University (FAU)
- V-Dem Institute
- Risk Network
- Global Public Policy Institute.
REPORT OBJECTIVES
- Inform Stakeholders
- Provide Monitoring Yardsticks
- Alter Incentive Structures
- Challenge University Rankings
- Facilitate Research
- Promote Academic Freedom.
REPORT ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY
These determinants capture key elements in the de facto realization of academic freedom:
- Freedom to research and teach
- Freedom of academic exchange and dissemination
- Institutional autonomy
- Campus integrity
- Freedom of academic and cultural expression.
OTHER COMPLEMENTING DETERMINANTS USED
- Constitutional support
- International levels
- Whether universities have ever existed in a given country.
A GLOBAL OVERVIEW
- A total of 35 countries, depicted in grey on the map, did not meet the minimum coder threshold for 2019.
SOURCES : AFi Report 2020
- Across the whole published dataset (1900–2019), country-years that did not meet a threshold of at least three coders for a particular indicator were omitted to ensure data quality.
- Its global average remains at a moderate level today.
- There is a steep overall increase with the third wave of democratization in the early 1990s.
GLOBAL TRENDS IN COMPONENTS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM, 1900–2019
SOURCES : AFi Report 2020
SIGNIFICANCE
- Advocacy groups may use AFi data to challenge states to meet their international and domestic legal and policy commitments to respect and promote academic freedom.
- University leaders may use AFi data domestically when advocating for material and policy support for their institutions and their national higher education system.
- AFi data is to shape dialogue, combat misinformation, and mobilize support for policy recommendations .
RECOMMENDATIONS
- AFi data can provide a basis for international academic freedom monitoring mechanisms.
- Higher education policy-makers must respond to declining AFi scores.
- Higher education authorities should use AFi data to assess the trajectory of their own work by reviewing AFi indicators over time .
- AFi can help diplomats to understand and react to changing levels and violations of academic freedom.
- Diplomatic representatives at the United Nations could use AFi data to report on their countries’ record on academic freedom.
- Diplomats can refer to AFi data when making recommendations to other states in multilateral fora.
- Diplomats and government representatives should express concerns over these violations and raise them bilaterally with the host government.
- AFi data can help detect softer forms of repression in the university sector – long before individual academics fear for their lives.
OVERALL RANKING
OVERALL RANKING | SOURCES : AFi Report 2020
IASbhai WINDUP:
- Regular iterations of the index will help advocacy groups demonstrate trends and evaluate the effectiveness of enacted policy reforms.
- AFi data can help to support the link between academic freedom and quality higher education and research.
- AFi data can also be used to start a debate on academic freedom at one’s home institution.
- The AFi can help researchers and graduate students to assess the level of academic freedom before embarking on fieldwork.
- The AFi can inform individual students and researchers in their decisions about where to apply for academic jobs, study, or spend a semester abroad.
SOURCES: THE HINDU | Academic Freedom Index 2020 | UPSC
Must Read Articles :
DISCOVER MORE : REPORTS
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for Daily Current Affairs , Editorial Analysis & Answer writing video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
