Prof Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atuah is a lecturer at the UG School of Law
Professor Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua of the University of Ghana School of Law has called on tertiary institutions across the African continent to restore practices that ensure effective academic freedom in universities.
Speaking at his inaugural lecture at the UG Great Hall on August 27, 2026, on the theme “The Student Question: Reclaiming Academic Freedom for Democratic Renewal in Africa,” he expressed concern over the declining standards of academic freedom in institutions across the continent.
The law professor shared an experience from a conference in Malawi, where he said the rights of students were being abused, hindering their progress.
Mahama Third-Term Debate: Prof Appiagyei-Atua questions Supreme Court petitions
“I got that word from, or that phrase from, a student in Malawi when we went for a conference there. Student debts, the mental health of students, students with special needs concerns, to a large extent, are neglected, and we capture all of these in our monitoring.
“Freedom and rights issues, expression restrictions—students are not allowed to express themselves in a number of countries. Financial exclusion when it comes to scholarships and so on. Political interference in representation—I’ll come back to that. Because it’s a big problem when we talk about what he also calls the culture of silence, because there’s no critical consciousness developed as a result,” he said.
He also cited an Afrobarometer report which, he said, shows a decline in support for democracy on the continent, a trend that could negatively affect academic freedom.
“Afrobarometer has done a number of studies on this. Increased tolerance of democracy, the total came to 77%. It means that democracy is also on the decline, and it establishes the earlier point I made that the relationship between academic freedom and democracy can be seen in the context of if democracy is improving, academic freedom also improves, and vice versa,” he added.
Prof. Appiagyei-Atua went on to advocate for the strengthening of academic freedom policies in universities and called for an end to politicisation that undermines the core tenets of academic institutions.
“The very essence of these universities, the very purpose they were set up, is the same as today. But today, in a number of universities, we are rather moving away from some of these policies as a result of infiltration of the university space by the state, sometimes working through university management as proxies, and also infiltration by political party systems in the universities. It is time to reclaim the university space, and so that means going back,” he added.
Watch the lecture below:
SB/AM
New airport terminal to drive Ghana’s economic transformation – Yvonne Opare
Copyright © 1994 - 2026 GhanaWeb. All rights reserved.
