The University of Fiji Vice Chancellor, Professor Shaista Shameem says she appreciated the speech by NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad that academic freedom is very important to protect as a core value of institutional autonomy.
Speaking at the debate on the Fiji National University Bill in parliament, Professor Prasad said that institutional autonomy extended to students and staff being able to question any University Council, Senate and management, as well as the government.
Professor Shameem says that academic freedom was just as precious as media freedom and both were protected by section 17 of the 2013 Constitution.
She says in addition, the University of Fiji Act 2011 at section 40 provides for academic freedom at the university.
The Vice Chancellor says academic freedom includes academics' ability to research into any subject of their choice and to seek and impart knowledge without fear of control, punishment or retaliation.
She says it similarly protects the rights of students to engage fully in discourse.
Professor Shameem says it includes the right to have their physical and intellectual safety assured by any governance body, management or staff without fear of sanctions or punitive action'.
She says that a nation state shows its maturity when it makes full commitment to academic freedom as only then it can hope to develop a knowledge-based society for the good of all.
Professor Shameem says the university's second year law students had drafted a new Constitution for Fiji which would allow all contentious issues expressed by various interest groups to be resolved in harmony.
She says the students could only have developed such a document in the spirit of fearlessness in expressing their views about how they wanted their future to look.
The Vice Chancellor says without academic freedom protected by the supreme law, students may face restrictions on freedom of thought as well as belief.
Professor Shameem says freedom to express thought, belief and opinion is a mark of mature democracy without which a nation cannot hope to advance.
She adds our authoritarian systems do not always allow these freedoms, adding she appreciates Professor Biman Prasad making a firm commitment to it in Parliament.
