2005:43 R
Academic freedom in practice
The report draws attention to two background factors. One of them is the rapidly increasing dependence of research on support from external funding agencies, which means, for instance, that researchers are required to spend more and more of their time applying for funds to finance their endeavours. The other factor is the major expansion of higher education and the transition from an elite university to a mass university. The resources allocated to higher education have also risen, but not enough to allow teacher-student ratios to be maintained. Moreover the prior knowledge that beginner students bring with them has become more varied. The result is a much heavier workload for teachers and with it less time for their own research.
According to the students and teachers in this report, this has affected the quality of programmes. There is a view that there is now less and less scope for critical reflection. At the same time other elements of academic freedom have been maintained. The teachers feel that they have good possibilities of planning and implementing their teaching as they themselves want to, and the students appreciate, for instance, being able to combine single-subject courses to form their own degree programme and that they can study free of charge.
Academic freedom is an unknown concept for many
The survey reveals that very few student have an academic ideal that reflect the totality of intellectualism, the unrestricted pursuit of knowledge and breadth of education that the report considers central to higher education. Instead the questionnaire shows that some groups of students tend to regard higher education as a forum for intellectualism, while others associate it with the free pursuit of knowledge, and others yet again with educational breadth. Higher education has not therefore succeeded to any great extent in enabling students to integrate all three elements.
One of the report´s conclusions is that even if the students interviewed can offer descriptions that can be linked to the issue of academic freedom, the concept is still unfamiliar to many of them and even fewer have considered it in relation to the teaching offered. The responses to the questionnaire show, however, that on the whole students espouse the ideals linked to academic freedom and also have high expectations of higher education in this respect. Nevertheless, closer study of the responses reveals that the students do not appear to have considered what would be required of their programmes and of students to enable this theoretical academic freedom to be put into practice.
This does not prevent students from including in their accounts of their educational experiences ideas that touch on the issue of academic freedom. Their descriptions include a great deal of criticism - and some self-criticism as well - which fits in well with the impression given by the teachers (but from another perspective). Both groups refer in their descriptions to shortcomings in terms of resources and organisation. Like the teachers, in the report the students claim that their teaching is based far too often on mechanical learning. Like the teachers, they also consider that examinations in many cases do not require a sufficient degree of independent learning and more advanced knowledge of their subjects. This indicates a failure to live up to the requirement in the Higher Education Act that higher education is to stimulate students in different ways to acquire the capacity for critical thinking and autonomy in their pursuit of knowledge.
Intellectual development more important than social and personal development in student eyes
The results of the questionnaire sent to a sample of Swedish students in higher education show that their main motive for studying lies in their interest for a specific subject, even though in many cases this is combined with ideas about future career possibilities. The questionnaire responses also reveal that the students distinguish between two different ideals. In their eyes higher education should primarily promote their intellectual development. Secondly it should help to enhance their social and personal development. The difference in the importance they ascribe is significant: intellectual development is given an average of 4.4 while social and personal development receives an average of 3.8.
The weight placed on these study ideals varies, however, between different groups of students. Students at the universities emphasise intellectual development more than those at university colleges. There is also more stress on intellectual development at the more advanced levels of study. If the different subjects are taken into account, it becomes clear that the intellectual ideal is placed first by students of technology, mathematics, the natural sciences, medicine and law whereas social and personal development is mainly endorsed in programmes in the caring sciences, education and the fine arts, as well as by students of theology. The students become more satisfied with the role played by higher education in their intellectual development as they advance further in their studies. It can also be seen that the higher students grade the contribution made by higher education to the breadth of their education, the higher they rate its contribution to their intellectual development. This state of affairs is reflected in the impression reported by many teachers when they assert that it is not until the more advanced levels of study that teaching and examinations can be offered at the level of difficulty to be expected in higher education.
Higher education given a pass but lower grade for teaching and social usefulness
According to the questionnaire survey, the grade given to higher education by the students is a good pass, but it does not attain a distinction. It can also be seen that of the factors the students were asked to assess teaching was given one of the lower grades. Higher education receives the lowest grades for one of its more abstract ideals - the social benefits of the contribution it makes.
Freedom of research
Where the scope for undertaking free research was concerned, the researchers/teachers in the report consider that in formal terms freedom means that the state does not regulate what subjects research may be conducted into. However, the problem is that researchers feel that their actual possibilities of exercising this freedom are deteriorating. The main reasons given are the lack of research funding and also the way in which funding is organised. Opportunities to undertake research within their posts have become rare. There has been a drastic reduction of pure research posts and most of the permanent posts available are for teaching. On the whole university teaching posts involve a great deal of teaching and administration. In addition many of them depend on external finance from various state and private funding agencies to be able to undertake research.
The second requirement that has to be fulfilled if teaching can be described as free comprises conditions that will make it possible to teach freely and communicate research findings without restrictions as part of this teaching. All the teachers considered that here they had a great deal of scope. There is room for individual teachers to influence the content and the methodology of courses, provided that the objectives laid down in the syllabus are attained. On the other hand the teachers considered that other factors, such as increased application of a “high school" approach as well as shortcomings in their students´ prior knowledge restricted their freedom to offer teaching and also examinations at the level of difficulty required if standards were to be maintained.
“High school" trends in higher education?
The teachers and the students interviewed agreed with one voice that higher education today is characterised by a general tendency towards a “high school" approach. What they mean by this is that many students study mainly to pass their examinations and demonstrate a lack of autonomy and critical thinking. Some of those interviewed interpret this to be a consequence of increased concentration on benefits: that higher education is seen mainly as the quickest way of getting a degree and after that a job. Another opinion expressed is that it is easy to understand this trend because the students borrow money to study and repayment requirements have, like the labour market, become more demanding. Those interviewed considered this to be an unfortunate development as it runs counter to the idea of higher education as a forum for educational breadth, critical thinking and reflection.
Several students were also critical of the way in which students (among whom they sometimes included themselves) undertook their university studies. They consider that students still had a high school approach in that their aim was to pass the courses with the least possible effort.
Lack of prior knowledge
The other problem on which all those interviewed were in agreement concerned shortcomings in the students´ prior knowledge, which made it even more difficult for them to take the necessary step from pure learning by rote to analysis and interpretation. It has also become harder for teachers to offer teaching at the correct level, i.e. teaching at a level of difficulty in which it is possible to communicate adequately the research findings it is intended to reflect. The students should also be given value for their money so that they receive teaching of the standard they are entitled to expect in higher education.
One practical consequence of this is the absence of really difficult elements at lower levels. Introducing them would create an obvious risk that far too many would not pass the courses. Too few passes would reduce funding because of the throughput requirements that have been incorporated into the system for financing undergraduate programmes in higher education.
The large cohorts of student combined with a lower teacher/student ratio also means that groups are becoming larger, which, according to the report, has the result that little prominence is given initially to the presentation of the critical perspectives that should form part of all higher education. These have to wait until the more advanced courses when smaller group sizes enable teaching of this kind. Many teachers also point out, however, that lack of prior knowledge is not something for which individual students can be blamed, but is more the result of the system.
Close link between teaching and research?
There is in addition agreement between the impression conveyed by the students in the survey that far too many teachers appear to lack interest in their teaching and the teachers´ description of themselves as a vocational group that has to struggle to find time to research (and much of whose time is devoted to applications for research funding). The descriptions offered in the report suggest that the “close link" between research and teaching prescribed by the Higher Education Act is often far from clear. As a result, according to the report, higher education does not provide a large number of students with any scope for the intellectual curiosity, educational aspiration and critical thought that is a prerequisite for their free pursuit of knowledge and with it their academic freedom.
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