Sexual harassment has been identified as the most pressing threat to academic freedom in Ghana’s tertiary institutions, according to the 2025 Africa Academic Freedom Monitoring Report released by the African Coalition for Academic Freedom (ACAF).
The report, launched at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) in Accra assessed academic freedom across 30 African countries and painted a worrying picture of persistent violations affecting teaching, learning, research, and institutional autonomy.
At the launch, Professor Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, Regional Director of the African Coalition for Academic Freedom, highlighted sexual harassment as a particularly serious issue in Ghana.
“There are also issues about sexual harassment in terms of the relationship between academics and students, which students complain about, especially female students who have been at the mercy of some academics for sex to get marks or to reward them with some other favours and so on, but most of the students are not able to report,” he noted.
The report gave the continent an overall negative violation score of 72 out of 100, indicating that academic freedom remains under threat despite various efforts to strengthen protections.
Professor Appiagyei-Atua, however, acknowledged that Ghana is performing relatively better than many other African countries.
“Comparatively, if you look at the state of academic freedom on the continent generally, you can see that, relatively, Ghana ranks quite high. Yes, but it doesn’t mean that the picture is rosy in Ghana.
“There are several violations that also take place. So overall, you can rank Ghana as among the best-performing on the continent, but there are still some important gaps that need to be filled,” he explained.
The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has pledged to support efforts to address the issues raised in the report. National Secretary Titus Owusu Darko said the union is ready to collaborate with civil society and other stakeholders.
“NUGS, we are committed to partnering with all the CSOs, most importantly the African Coalition for Academic Freedom, and contributing our quota to this particular development… we are willing to contribute our quota and support everything that we can do in our capacity,” he stressed.
Stakeholders at the launch called for stronger policies, better reporting mechanisms, and closer collaboration between government, universities, students, and civil society to create safer and more inclusive learning environments across Ghana.
ALSO READ:
