UK: Lecturers fear anti-terror laws

A senior member of Britain's Higher Education Academy has noted that many academics teaching and researching terrorism-related subjects are including disclaimers in their course materials as a result of anti-terror laws. According to Times Higher Education, a senior coordinator at the Academy's centre for sociology, anthropology and politics organised a workshop on 'teaching terrorism' at the University of Strathclyde last month in response to the new fears.

The workshop was the first in a series that will examine the implications of counterterrorist activity for universities. It follows a high-profile case at the University of Nottingham where a postgraduate student studying Islamic terrorism was arrested for possessing a copy of the al-Qaeda handbook. He was held for six days before being released without charge.

SIERRA LEONE: Academics threaten strike action

According to Awareness Times, the Academic Staff Association of Njala University in Sierra Leone is threatening to strike against the university administration unless immediate action is taken over the suspension of academic programmes by the Tertiary Education Commission.

The staff association had reportedly planned a 21-day strike, beginning on 8 October. The commission's move was seen as negative for all staff, students and the institution itself. A few months ago, the TEC suspended some postgraduate courses offered at Njala on grounds of staffing capacity and other matters of staff competence and availability, the Awareness Times reported.

NEW ZEALAND: University committed to academic freedom

Waikato University has stressed the importance of preserving academic freedom, despite having removed a student's thesis from its library after a complaint. According to the Waikato Times, the thesis contained neo-Nazi themes and was removed from the library without warning after a complaint from the subject of the research, Kerry Bolton, a former National Front secretary.

Roel Van Leeuwen, a student at the university, earned top marks for the thesis. But Bolton complained the thesis was poorly researched and ineptly supervised.

Director of Communications at Waikato said the thesis had been removed from the library while the university established a fair process to deal with the complaint. He stressed it was important to preserve academic freedom for staff and for students and to continue to put forward ideas and unpopular opinions, the Times said.

CYPRUS: Criticism over rewriting of history textbook

A decision by the Greek Cypriot government to revise history textbooks to improve peaceful coexistence between the island's Greek and Turkish speaking communities has enraged many clerics and politicians, the Turkish Daily News has said.

Opponents of the idea criticised Greek Cypriot Education Minister Andreas Demetriou for making the proposal, saying it would undermine the heritage of the Mediterranean island. Greek Cypriot President Demitris Christofias and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat, recently held a further meeting in a round of talks intended to try and reunify Cyprus.

The Turkish Daily said the Education Minister issued his controversial circular to schools around the time the talks began, saying he wanted to help develop a culture of respect between the two communities in a bid to bolster reunification. Problems in teaching history are apparently rife on both sides of the divided island.

SOUTH KOREA: Government urged to stop history textbook revision

The Hankyoreh reports that 21 history-related academic societies have criticised the Korean government and the Grand National Party for opting to revise the textbook, Korea's Recent and Modern History.

The groups have urged the government and the party to cease actions that hurt the spirit of the textbook authorisation system and defame the character of historians and teachers. At a press conference earlier this month, representatives of the societies said that "recent attempts to revise the textbook are acts that seek to deny and nationalise the authorisation system and represent a challenge to history education and a step back historically".

The Hankyoreh said the societies participating in the joint declaration demanded an end to wasteful ideological disputes, discontinuation of unjust external pressure on the writers of textbooks and a guarantee of autonomous revision to forestall a change for the worse in textbooks. The statement by scholars has revealed major concerns about the influence of politics on history education.

* Jonathan Travis is programme officer for the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR).

www.nearinternational.org