“In most countries, university communities can be viewed as social barometers: academics and students can respond more freely and idealistically to external events than can people in the outside world whose lives are more constrained. Thus, during the apartheid years, universities were in the vanguard of change, being centres of political protest and seeking ways of throwing off the yoke of oppression,” says this commentary about the current staff crisis at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “T...read more
“In most countries, university communities can be viewed as social barometers: academics and students can respond more freely and idealistically to external events than can people in the outside world whose lives are more constrained. Thus, during the apartheid years, universities were in the vanguard of change, being centres of political protest and seeking ways of throwing off the yoke of oppression,” says this commentary about the current staff crisis at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “The fact is,” the commentary goes on to say, “that at the University of KwaZulu-Natal at least, academic freedom appears to be shrinking rather than growing, and oppression is believed to have returned with a vengeance - the grim irony being that this now appears to be coming, not from outside, but from within the institution itself.”
