Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, at the HERS-SA Academy 2004, 26 September 2004. University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Waterfront, Cape Town

Lesley Shackleton, Director of HERS-SA
Vice Chancellors and other representatives of universities and technikons
Members of the 2004 Academy
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to be with you this evening at the start of your week-long programme of workshops and speakers. I am delighted that from your humble beginnings, primarily focussed on the Western Cape, the Academy now draws women from all over the country and beyond. May I particularly welcome our colleagues from other parts of Africa. Your presence will no doubt greatly enrich the proceedings.

I must start by congratulating HERS-SA for developing and sustaining activities to support the professional development of women in higher education. For many women, exposure to the networking and training opportunities offered by academies such as this one can be potentially life changing by opening the prospect of new opportunities and possibilities.

Some years ago, while on the staff of the University of Cape Town, I too was fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in a summer academy at Bryn Mawr in the United States. That experience certainly brought to the fore the need for structured opportunities for the professional development of potential leaders in higher education. The challenge of ensuring that there is indeed a rich pool of women capable of taking up leadership roles in our higher education is too important to be left to chance.

As a country, we have made major strides in putting gender firmly on the national agenda. Over ten short years, we have made gains that many other countries can only dream of. Few mature democracies can equal the level of participation of women that our parliament enjoys. The presence of a critical mass of women members of parliament has been very important in the adoption of legislation that is not only gender sensitive but also promotes the rights and interest of the poor and marginalised in our society.

In education, I believe that a proper appraisal of the progress that has been made in achieving gender equity is a pre-requisite for planning and prioritising our interventions for the coming years. It is for this reason that I am commissioning a review of progress in implementing the recommendations of the gender equity task team’s report. You may recollect that in 1997 a task team headed by AnnMarie Wolpe reported on the state of gender equity in the education system and proposed strategies for achieving greater parity.

The review will be important in identifying gaps in policy and legislation as well as the barriers to the successful implementation of our goals with respect to gender equity in the education system. I hope that the expertise within organisations such as HERS-SA will be mobilised to support this important exercise.

I will soon be announcing the details of the review and will make the terms of reference available.

In higher education, significant changes have taken place with respect to the gender and racial composition of the student body. Just over 50% of the students in higher education are women and close on 75% are black (African, coloured, Indian) students. With specific reference to gender, I suspect that we are beginning to see patterns of participation that are not markedly different to those found in many countries of the north, that is, while overall gender parity has been achieved, women remain under-represented in a number of key areas of study such as, science, engineering and technology and in postgraduate studies more generally.

In relation to staff, women continue to be underrepresented, especially in the senior echelons of academic institutions. However, as pointed out by George Subotzky, the Head of the Centre for Higher Education Studies (formerly the Education Policy Unit) at the University of the Western Cape, the under-representation of women appears to be a trend worldwide with no real difference between high income and low and medium income countries in the proportions of full-time academic staff. According to George Subotzky, “this supports the suggestion that gender inequalities are common across various national, ethnic, and race identities and therefore provides a more fundamental obstacle to equity”.

I have no doubt that over the coming days; you will be exploring the range of barriers to the advancement of women in higher education in South Africa and the continent more broadly. Much of this discussion will, in all likelihood, be based on anecdotal evidence. However, what is needed is more in depth research so that we can gain a sharper understanding of the factors that are stopping women from achieving their full potential.

Many questions need to be addressed. For example:

• What are the differences and similarities of the experiences of black and white women, of women in different academic disciplines and at different levels of the academic hierarchy?
• How do different institutional cultures impact on the career trajectories of women academics?

I hope that such research can begin to inform the development of institutional policies and practices to improve gender equity in the recruitment, retention and promotion of staff in our universities and technikons.

When it comes to gender equity in the leadership of higher education, much of the public attention is focussed on the most senior level of vice-chancellor. In this regard, a number of remarkable women, such as Mamphela Ramphele and Brenda Gourlay, have been path breakers.

But what about senior management? How many women are executive deans of faculties, academic registrars, finance deputy vice-chancellors, academic planners and directors of research? How many women chair university and technikon councils? Why is it that too often, women and black people tend to occupy the perceived ‘soft’ positions such deputy vice-chancellor for student affairs?

And there is a similar pattern outside the halls of the academy. According to a recent report released by the Commission for Employment Equity, black people held only 22% of senior management positions in SA in 2002, with black women still struggling to leave the lower rungs. The report, which analysed and compared employment equity reports submitted in 2000 and 2002, found that there was ‘limited improvement’ relating to employment practices and race.

I hope that the networks emerging from organisations like HERS-SA will actively take up the challenge of identifying suitable women applicants for senior positions and, equally find ways of supporting new incumbents. And I hope you will use the powers of the institutional forums to monitor and promote women into positions of real power within universities. Those of you who are at institutions where you have been told that the institutional forum only has a power to check on procedure in appointments must take a closer look at the law. The importance of mentorship to nurture future generations of women in academia should not be underestimated.

I have little doubt that the task of changing institutional cultures and practices that work against the advancement of women and black people, either consciously or unconsciously, is not an easy task. It requires the collective will and commitment of all key players, including the government, university and uni-technology councils and managements and the leadership of staff and student bodies.

I will, in the coming months, find the opportunity to engage more formally with various structures in order to explore the ways in which the government, in particular, can contribute to the development of an enabling environment in higher education to support both gender and racial equity.

I am certain that all of you would agree that, while gender equity in terms of staff representivity and female access to non-traditional disciplines is important, the tasks of transformation demand action beyond this important minimum.

The degree to which recognition of equality impacts on the shape and content of academic programmes also needs action. The pursuit of equity should impact on the character of society; this can only happen through the action of new intellectuals emerging from the academy with an integrated academic package that reinforces the core principles of equality, human dignity, and attention to people and world development. Our academic programmes remain firmly attached to the old ways of doing things and it is time for us to review both the structure and the content of our institutional offerings in order to test their relevance to today’s world.

Thank you for inviting me to open the 2004 Academy. Looking at the programme, it is clear that you will be working very hard over the coming days. But, if tonight is anything to go by, I’m sure you will also be having a fun time!

I wish you every success for the 2004 Academy.