Higher education bodies in South Africa were called to action at the end of a two-day conference at the University of Cape Town about the paucity of women at senior levels in the sector.
Titled “Institutional Cultures and Higher Education Leadership: Where Are the Women”, the conference attracted about 120 delegates, including vice-chancellors and senior executives from South Africa and Africa. It resulted in a declaration calling for a significant improvement in the representation of women in senior academic, administrative and executive leadership positions in all higher education institutions.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor received the declaration on behalf of the department of education. The declaration was also presented to Higher Education South Africa (Hesa) and the Council on Higher Education (CHE).
Presentations at the conference emphasised that gender inequity was but one expression of an incomplete social transformation.
Intersecting forms of social exclusion incorporating issues of race, class and asymmetrical relations of power and privilege all needed targeted attention. Furthermore, although the monitoring of numbers was important — only three of South Africa’s 23 vice-chancellors and 14 of the 71 deputy vice-chancellors are women — the issue went beyond that of numbers.
Dr Mala Singh, professor of international higher education policy at the Open University in the United Kingdom, called for a shift in values, cultural conceptions and cognitive understandings.
There was a call to reconceptualise leadership beyond the current (often masculine) modes and to transform institutional cultures. Delegates to the conference recognised that, beyond being the objects of change, universities should be functioning as agents and leaders of change in society.
Transformed higher education institutions should be rising to the challenge of exposing young people to new patterns of social reproduction. Several of the speakers deplored the gap between policy and practice in South Africa.
Ideology should be leading to transformation, not merely compliance with policies. Professor Jonathan Jansen asked why there was not more of an expression of outrage at the gender inequalities at senior leadership levels.
This inequity was especially stark in respect of black women who represented only about 30% of the women who achieved academic leadership.
The conference called on the department of education and the CHE to promote the importance of equity at senior leadership levels.
The department of education was also asked to consider setting targets (with timeframes) for the representation of women in senior positions. The CHE would play an important role in monitoring progress towards gender equity in leadership positions.
Hesa was called on to draw up a national plan of action for women in leadership in higher education that would support the attainment of the targets set for the representation of women in senior positions.
In this the conference was emulating the approach taken by the Australian vice-chancellors’ committee about 10 years ago and which has resulted in Australia now being the country with the best representation of women at senior levels in universities.
A number of practical steps were identified to take the issue forward within individual institutions.
Universities were called upon to identify institutional barriers to equity and success in leadership and undertake innovative ways of addressing these impediments. Annual reports should be presented to councils on gender equity at senior levels. Employment equity policies and their implementation needed to be examined.
The conference delegates clearly voiced the opinion that, since 1994, gender has become a distant second to race in the hierarchy of employment equity in South Africa. Although the conference focused on the pivotal higher education sector, there was a broader call for a new national vision on gender and leadership.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele challenged universities to lead the way in questioning our strong authoritarian, racist and sexist culture.
She called for a redefinition of power away from a control model towards an enabling model: “Power has the capacity to act and enable others to do likewise; reframes social relationships from those characterised by domination of one group or sector over others to relationships that thrive on celebration of diversity,” she said.
Lesley Shackleton is the chair of the board of HERS-SA, a managed network to improve the status of women in higher education in South Africa