 The UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of

Higher-Education Teaching Personnel was adopted by the

General Conference of UNESCO in 1997, following years of
preparatory work between UNESCO and the ILO. This
standard is a set of recommended practices covering all
higher education teaching personnel. It is designed to
complement the 1966 Recommendation, and is promoted
and its implementation monitored by UNESCO in
cooperation with the ILO, notably through the Joint ILO/
UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the
Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel(CEART).
 The 1997 Recommendation complements the 1966
Recommendation and covers all higher-education
teaching and research personnel. higher education
teaching personnel includes “all those persons in
institutions or programmes of higher education who
are engaged to teach and/or to undertake
scholarship and/or to undertake research and/or to
provide educational services to students or to the
community at large”.
 Delivery of a learning, training or education program
by electronic means.
 Provide training, educational or learning material.
 Electronic learning via the Web is seen as one critical
way of reducing the problem of access to higher
learning, particularly for those who live in far-flung
areas or cannot physically attend classes for an array
of reasons.
 Philippine statutes and case law have yet
to address academic freedom concerns of
educators in the context of higher e-
learning.

 The author has found no law, case or any

administrative pronouncement from the
Philippine Commission on Higher
Education that references the 1997
Recommendations.
 Myanmar closed all universities following the
arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and banned the
internet to sever contacts with the outside
world.

 Educators in Cuba have experienced varying

degrees of denials of access to the internet

 The Iranian state recognizes the importance of

blogging but is dong everything to control the
practice for its own purposes.
 Professor Mohamad Reza Fathi was harassed,
detained and accused of disturbing the peace,
publishing false information and insults, due to his
very popular internet blog that was critical of the
local government in Qom.

 Political science professor and lawyer, Qasem

Sho’leh Sa’di was arrested and has been held
incommunicado since 2003 because of an open
letter he published on his website that was critical of
Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.
 In China, the government closed ‘Yi Ta Hu Tu” a
popular online discussion forum in Beijing University
used by professors, students and research
institutes, due to the critical discussions of sensitive
issues like corruption, human rights and Taiwanese
independence.

 Journalism lecturer, Jiao Guobao, whise many

articles critical of the Chinese governement that
have appeared on online sites, had been asked by
the State to resign.
 Professor Zheng Yichun, who had published several
articles that were initial of the Communist Party
leaders online, was sentenced seven years
imprisonment in 2005 for incitement to subversion
due to these articles.

 Educators Yan Jun and Ouyang Yi were each

sentenced for two years for publishing “sunversive”
essays on the Internet that criticized the
government’s handling of student unrest during the
Tiananmen Square massacre.
 In Vietnam, Professor Tran Khue was jailed for
nineteen months for posting on the internet his
critical writings about Vietnam’s 1999 border
pact with China and other political articles that
were published in two online journals, which
he established.

 Professor Vu Ngoc Binh is currently detained

for his advocacy of peacefull political reform
and criticism of government policis, through
the usage of the Internet.
 In South Korea, Professor KangJeong-koo
was indicted for breaching the National
Security Law because of an article he wrote
for an internet media outlet in July 2005, which
the administration deemed as pro-North
Korean and anti-American.

 He was suspended by Dongguk University

because of its claim that his article, which
called the 1950-1953 Korean War, a “war of
reunification,” damaged the university’s
prestige.
 Abuse on educators’ freedoms because of
their online activities are not characterized
by the ideology or economic standing of
state.

 The National Teacher Education Union

intervened by threatening strike action
against the university before it restored
the access.
 The 1997 Recommendation’s standards are
applicable to all of them because of the provision
that “similar questions that arise in all countries
with regard to the status of higher education
teaching personnel… [which] call for the adoption
of common approaches and so far as practicable the
application of common standards.”
 The educator is assumed to possess the requisite
and specialized knowledge, skills, and methods
known and used by other academics in a given area
that the educator has chosen to specialize in.
 Academic freedom protection is not
limited only to full time academics in
higher education.
 The 1997 Recommendation “applies to all
higher-education teaching personnel be
they in the private or public sector. This
covers part time or adjunct faculty
members who practically do not enjoy the
same degree of academic freedom as
their colleagues with tenure.
 As the Committee of Experts on the
Application of the Recommendations
concerning Teaching Personnel(CEART) in its
2003 Report noted, the continued prevalence
of short time or part time contracts for
educators, does not give them adequate
protection from “reprisal for their political views
or their positions in academic issues” and from
politically motivated appointments, and such
constitutes the biggest challenge to tenure,
which is one of the major safeguards for
academic freedom”
 The Estonian parliament was the first legislative
body in the world to declare that Internet access
is a human right granted to each of its citizens.
Many countries are a long accepting and
granting the same to their citizens.

 But UNESCO has paved the passage of the

2003 Recommended concerning the Promotion
and Use of Multilingualism and Universal
Access to Cyberspace (2003
Recommendation)
 The 2003 Recommendation defines universal access to
cyberspace as “equitable and affordable access by all
citizens to information infrastructure (notably to the
Internet) and to information and knowledge essential to
collective and individual human development.
 Internet access is noted as being “at the core of
contemporary debates and can be a determining factor
in the development of a knowledge-based society.
 The Internet is seen as providing opportunities for
improving the “free flow of ideas by word and image but
also presents challenges for ensuring the participation
of all in the global information society.
 “Member States and international organizations should
recognize and support universal access to the Internet as
an instrument for promoting the realization of (certain)
human rights as defined in . . The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR).

These rights in UDHR are the “right freely to participate in the

cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in
scientific advancement and its benefits, and the “freedom of
opinion without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.
 The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights also supports the
2003 Recommendation with its provision
on the right of everyone “to freedom to
expression; this right shall include
freedom to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas of all kinds,
regardless of frontiers, either orally, in
writing or in print, in the form of art, or
through any other media of his choice”.
 Instead of being seen as a privilege of
developed nations and people who have the
means to connect to the internet, the 2003
Recommendation requires UNESCO Member
States and international organizations to
“promote access to the internet as a service of
public interest through the adoption of
appropriate policies in order to enhance the
process of empowering citizenship and civil
society.
 The concerns of the 2003 Recommendation
are well reflected in the 1997
Recommendation.
 The 1997 Recommendation provides that
higher education teaching personnel “should
have access, without censorship, to
international computer systems, satellite
programmes and databases required for their
teaching, scholarship or research.
 To this end, the 1997 Recommendation
expressly requires universities as part of their
“institutional right, duty and responsibility,” to
ensure that they have “up-to-date libraries and
access, without censorship, to modern
teaching, research and information resources
providing information required by higher
education teaching personnel… fro teaching
scholarship or research.