Academics protest plan to give ministry more control
Al-Fanar Media.
“The new draft law establishes a contracting system to regulate the relationship between professors and their university, subjecting it to the logic of the market and privatisation in a way that undermines the principle of academic freedom and the independence of scholars,” said Jaouad Rabaa, a member of the National Office for the independent Karama (‘Dignity’) Coordination of Research Professors, in a phone call.
Rabaa, a professor of political science and constitutional law at the University of Ibn Zohr in Agadir, explained that the draft law granted “supreme” authority to the university’s administrative body and the ministry to control teachers’ financial benefits and work privileges. The bill also grants the ministry of higher education powers to amend the curricula and intervene in research professors’ work, says Rabaa.