| Abstract: |
Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of higher education, essential for
the advancement of knowledge and the preparation of students for the
challenges of the 21st century. It is important to protect academic freedom
and to ensure that academic and administrative personnel, as well as students,
are able to exercise their freedom without fear of reprisal. Academic freedom
is guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia, the Law of Georgia on Higher
Education, accreditation and authorization standards. However, university
community and organizations have different understandings of academic freedom.
This can make it difficult to assess whether or not academic freedom is being
protected or limited in a particular case. Accordingly, the research aims to
clarify the meaning of academic freedom based on the Law of Georgia on Higher
Education and identifies some of the challenges that need to be addressed to
ensure that academic freedom is protected or limited in practice. The paper
argues that academic freedom should be understood as the right of academic and
administrative personnel, as well as students, to teach, research, and publish
without fear of censorship or reprisal. The author suggests that more needs to
be done to educate academic community and administrators about the meaning of
academic freedom and how it can be protected. The paper concludes that
academic freedom is a guarantor of innovation in educational institutions,
which ensures that ideas dictated by freedom of thought are implemented by
universities, academic, scientific personnel, and students and creates new
knowledge. |