Fighting slavery in higher education institutions

Fighting Modern-Day Slavery in Higher Education Institutions Published on March 14, 2017

Ali Mansouri Writer, Researcher, Consultant March 14 is #MyFreedomDay- a project by CNN, the international media leader. On this day, human beings across the globe join together to fight for their freedom and the freedom of their Page 1 of 7

fellow human beings everywhere against modern-day slavery in all its forms and shapes including human trafficking. This is a global and noble project. It is very inspiring to all decent human beings who love their freedom as long as it does not infringe on other people’s freedom.

We need to join the fight and stand up to slavery in higher education where modern-day slavery is, regrettably, being practised in many higher education institutions.

Slavery, by nature and by definition, is the opposite of freedom whether it is physical freedom or freedom of expression. Slavery has long been documented in films, documentaries, stories, novels and other forms of human creation throughout the history of mankind. Let us look at the definition of ‘slavery’ in some English dictionaries:

English Oxford Living Dictionaries Definition of slave in English:

slave noun 

1(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. ‘they kidnapped entire towns and turned them into slaves’

1. 1.1 A person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation. ‘by the time I was ten, I had become her slave, doing all the housework’   1.2 A person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something. ‘the poorest people of the world are slaves to the banks’ ‘she was no slave to fashion’   1.3 A device, or part of one, directly controlled by another. as modifier ‘a slave cassette deck’

COLLINS English Dictionary

slavery uncountable noun Page 2 of 7

Slavery is the system by which people are owned by other people as slaves.

My people have survived 400 years of slavery.

Synonyms: enslavement, servitude, subjugation, captivity More Synonyms of slavery COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers Word Frequency

slavery noun 1. the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune 2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp. in being forced into work 3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit 4. work done in harsh conditions for low pay I as a woman mean to fight and win: let the men live in slavery if they will.

Fay Weldon NOTHING TO WEAR AND NOWHERE TO HIDE: A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES (2004) Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary

slavery (noun) 1. (Law) the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune 2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp. in being forced into work.

3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit 4. (Industrial Relations & HR Terms) work done in harsh conditions for low pay.

Surprisingly, very little has been written about “slavery” in higher education institutions! This may be due to the widespread mistaken belief that “slavery” and “higher education” are two terms that are contradictory in nature. Most people, especially those who have no experience in working in a higher education institution or knowledge about the higher education system, mistakenly believe that higher education institutions offer ideal working conditions, a rich environment for freedom of academic work, freedom of expression and freedom of movement.

Regrettably, this is not the case in most higher education institutions in the world! The following

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are some indicators of modern-day slavery in many higher education institutions where teachers are required to work for low pay in very harsh conditions like slaves: 

Teachers are required by their work contract to work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. or even 9 p.m. non-stop and are not allowed to leave the campus even if they do not have any lessons or

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lectures!

Teaching between 20 to 25 classroom hours and sometimes up to 30 teaching hours

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without any overtime or compensation of any sort. This is worse than in primary schools!

Organizing quizzes, midterm tests and final exams and doing all the marking of the tests and exams papers. This also entails the submission of the grades on appropriate ugly

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forms.

Maintaining discipline in classrooms where many students are undisciplined, rowdy and use their mobile phones during most of the lecture time. Teachers are thus asked to act like “policemen” with the students. If any problem occurs, the blame will fall on the teacher not the student because he is the weakest point in the chain. This is made more than worse when the senior managers like the VC and the Assistant VC spend most of their time in their “ivory towers’ and do not care about anything except their trivial



meetings!

Offering Academic and Psychological Advising to students due to the lack of proper academic and counseling facilities in most higher education institutions. These



“facilities” exist in names but not in reality because of deception and cheating.

Teachers are required to organize students’ portfolios, academic files, take daily attendance of students and many other non-academic trivial tasks just to please the



corrupt VC and Assistant VC. Teachers’ offices are unreasonably crowded creating a very healthy environment for the teachers who pass their “infectious” diseases to one another. These offices, in some universities, are too small like pigeonholes where teachers can hardly move. And because of the long hours of work, most teachers suffer from depression, heart diseases, hepatitis,



hemorrhoids and even mental disorder!

Many teachers in colleges and universities are allocated offices in Porta Cabins which are

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very dirty and full of insects, rats and snakes!

Healthcare facilities are almost non-existent on campus. Teachers and students need to arrange to go outside of campus to very poor clinics or hospitals with very unqualified staff and outdated medical equipment.

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

Teachers are low-paid with salaries less than those of cleaners in a modest cleaning company in the capital city. They are “penniless” most of the days of the month whereas the senior managers, like the VC, gets very high salaries for doing almost nothing and

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come only once a week or even once a month to the university.

Violence and physical attacks against teachers have been on rise recently in some

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countries.

Teachers are constantly abused by stupid and silly directives from the senior management. Most of these directives are disrespectful and threatening and many of them are nothing more than an insult to human intelligence.

If all the above is not “slavery” in its ugliest form, what is it then?!

What is worse than the worse is the bitter fact that teachers and other members of staff are “tied” to the jobs by contracts of work and obsolete practices reminiscent of the slavery practices of the Middle Ages!! If you examine the work contract of university teachers, you find many items that cannot be termed other than “legal” justifications for a disgusting and abhorrent form of slavery in higher education. These contracts of work cannot pass even the simplest test of human rights.

Of course, the situation is different from one country to another but the difference, in reality, is a matter of degree rather than of type. One wonders what sort of mentality has designed such a work contract and what sort of academics have agreed to, accepted and written the items of the contract which cannot be accepted even by a layman though in most developing countries the term “human rights” is a laughable term—people take it as a joke and they will laugh at you when you remind them that the term exists in other parts of the world!

Most senior managers in private higher education behave like Pharos rather than people in charge of higher education institutions. They are “pig-headed” and do not have any morals, ethics, or principles. They do not really care about education in any form; they just care about money and profits to please the investors most of whom are failed and corrupt businessmen— ignorant and stupid though wealthy. They mistakenly believe they “own” their teachers and employees and can treat them the way they want. This is very clear in the insulting, vulgar and uncivilized style they follow with their teachers, staff and students.

Who is to blame? First of all, the teachers and members of staff are the first to blame for agreeing to be “slaves” working under very harsh conditions for low pay and without their basic Page 5 of 7

human rights of academic freedom, freedom of expression and freedom of movement. Some of the teachers, who are metaphorically called “academics”, volunteer to be slaves, hypocrites and spies—they volunteer to pass and fabricate anything that pleases the Dean, VC, the Assistant VC or other senior managers. They tell you, to your face, they do not care about anything as long as they stay on the payroll for the sake of their children! Really poor creatures! They should be ashamed of themselves! The second party to blame is the governments, higher education ministries and education authorities who do not do their job properly in ensuring that teachers and other employees should not be subjected to servitude and submissiveness by some academically and morally bankrupt senior managers who are themselves “slaves” to money and materialistic gains. Thirdly, the International Labor Organization, Transparency International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations who have not been paying due attention to the gross violations of basic human rights of teachers, students and workers in many higher education institutions in many countries in the world as if these institutions have “immunity” to prosecution and the senior managers can do whatever they like without being held to count by anyone. Compare this situation to the reports of these organisations about the violations of the human rights of workers in the construction industry in the world. I have not seen any international report about the violations of human rights in a higher education institution, especially in the Middle East where human rights are almost non-existent in most countries of the region.

Imagine yourself being insulted or criticized by people who do not possess even the basic qualifications and integrity of being an official in higher education. You find them corrupt, vulgar and uncivilized fit to run a farm for cattle rather than a university for human beings! How do you expect the teachers to behave towards their students when they themselves feel they are “slaves” and have no personal or social dignity?!

Slavery in higher education and corruption are intrinsically interconnected. The senior managers who practise slavery in higher education are corrupt officials who do not respect any law or principle as there are other corrupt people in high places who illegally back them up in case of need stealing from their fellow citizens the opportunity to live a decent human life.

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As we all know, there are thousands and thousands of higher education institutions in the world.

In order to separate the sheep from the goats, we need to shed light on the good institutions and expose the bad ones for the sake of all human beings everywhere.

Slavery in higher education, like corruption, is a very sensitive area and greatly affects the infrastructure and the sustainable development of human beings all over the world. But, to my astonishment, this area is widely neglected by even the leaders of the free international media like the CNN, BBC, EuroNews, and Al-Jazeera. CNN Freedom Project has just come at a time when it is most needed and we would like it to focus on colleges and universities in addition to schools. I, for one, would be very happy to see investigative and bold reports on modern-day slavery in higher education institutions by these and other international channels.

Teachers, like other employees, need their jobs. But they do not need to be slaves to anyone!

They are the candles of enlightenment. Without them, humanity goes back to the dark ages. It is a great pity they live in slavery, abject poverty and without dignity. Until when they will be treated unfairly by corrupt officials. The free media need to be more active in investigating how teachers and students are being treated in higher education institutions. This is one of the basic and noble tasks the free media need to think of and achieve on #MyFreedomDay!

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