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14 March 2019 | Story Opinion Article by Prof Francis Petersen | Photo Sonia Small
Prof Francis Petersen
Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.
2019 is the year of the national general elections in South Africa – 8 May is when South Africans will have an opportunity to vote and to impact change, hopefully for the better.  But the beginning of 2019 saw the resurfacing of student protests, mainly driven by issues of registration, challenges associated with the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), student accommodation, safety of students (off-campus), insourcing, and various other issues influenced by local institutional context.
  
Challenges for university vice-chancellors

Our Constitution promotes protest, but emphasises the peaceful nature thereof, and that it should not infringe on the rights of others or damage property.  However, the protests experienced by the majority of higher-education institutions in South Africa in 2019 was exactly the opposite – disruption of classes, intimidation and victimisation, disrespect and often destruction of property.  A notion or approach of almost entitlement, even if the university management was willing to engage and was constantly open to assess ways and means to resolve these issues.  The drive for these protests was short-term gains, totally divorced from the long-term implications on the institution’s welfare.  This puts the university management under enormous pressure, sometimes feeling exposed and alone in ensuring that the institution remains sustainable – financially, as well as from an infrastructure and human resource perspective.

There is no doubt that the upcoming elections are used for political lobbying, tactical manoeuvring, and undermining to demonstrate political muscle – all playing out on our university campuses and to be managed by university vice-chancellors (VCs) and their executives.

Are universities not the pillars of knowledge in society, the providers of human capital and new knowledge to ‘lubricate’ our economy, the delivery of the next generation of professionals who will shape how our society, or a new South African citizenship should look like?  If this is the case, who are protecting our universities, who is standing with our VCs and university executives to ensure that our universities remain the beacon of hope for generations to come?  What is expected of VCs and university management in situations where there is a continual push for more, and if the response is not positive or immediate, protests, and in most instances violent and criminal behaviour. My personal view is not to securitise or militarise our campuses, but to resolve these issues through continuous engagement – but what if protests becomes violent and criminal?  What if disruptions challenge or threaten students, staff, infrastructure, and the academic project?  Student leaders seem to have forgotten the engagement with university leadership through a principle of ‘give and take’, always balancing short-term wins with the long-term sustainability and growth of the university.

Although universities often have their own internal disciplinary processes, these are slow, and the transgressors are often repeat offenders.  The sanctions are also in many cases restorative – which I believe it should, but to what end?

Help needed to ensure sustainability of universities 

We have seen how weak leadership, corrupt practices, and inadequate government funding have had a detrimental effect on the overall state of universities in the rest of the continent.  This has led to the outflow of excellent academics from the continent to elsewhere on the globe – a loss for the university and the continent!  Universities, although resilient, are also fragile as a system.  The protests associated with the #Rhodes and #FeesMustFall movements, together with the continued protests in 2019, run the risk of putting South African universities on a similar trajectory.  A fragile university system, when broken, will take decades to be restored.

Therefore, if universities are important institutions for society and the country, should there not be more concerted efforts from government and society to ensure that our universities remain strong and competitive? Although I do not offer a specific solution per se, should government, together with university leadership, staff, and students not be more vocal, thinking of a mechanism to curb and/or disallow immediate disruptions and the breakdown of infrastructure, and show visible support to university leadership in an effort to continue the academic project?  Our universities are performing extremely well against global counterparts, keeping in mind the current (and the past 10 years) South African economic growth and investment constraints with respect to infrastructure, research, and high-level scientific equipment – even a more critical argument to protect these national assets.

Academic project remains crucial

I am not for a moment belittling the issues raised by students and student leaderships – in fact, most, if not all of these issues, are legitimate.  I can understand the frustrations of the students – the slow pace of transformation, social integration, and often the lack of urgency in executing agreed decisions within the higher-education sector.  However, I am questioning the type of reaction or action exhibited by the students if, for similar legitimate reasons (through proper engagements), student demands cannot be completely met by university leaders.

In the final analysis, South Africa needs strong universities which are competitive – the country needs appropriate skills to enable and support the economy.  Also, universities need to listen to the student voice – deal with their concerns in a fair and socially-just manner; but as a sector with all its stakeholders, we need to ultimately respect the academic project and the infrastructure (physical and human) which support it.  We cannot afford party-political dynamics to ‘abuse’ the university campus in a way that can destroy the fibre of our higher-education system.  This will be catastrophic for South Africa, and I believe for the continent.

I call on government, voices in society, fellow students, student leadership, and staff to support university management openly, pro-actively and firmly, so that our universities remain places of intellectual engagement and discovery, places where different views are respected and heard, and by ‘jealously guarding’ the institutions as ‘country resources’, responding to all stakeholders’ concerns in a fair and just manner.

It is only then that universities ‘regain’ their rightful place in society, educating the next generation of scholars and professionals, advancing new knowledge, and purposefully disseminate and apply these to society – contributing to ‘lubricating the economy’ and to the betterment of the quality of life of our people! 




News Archive

Gender bias still rife in African Universities
2007-08-03

 

 At the lecture were, from the left: Prof. Magda Fourie (Vice-Rector: Academic Planning), Prof. Amina Mama (Chair: Gender Studies, University of Cape Town), Prof. Engela Pretorius (Vice-Dean: Humanties) and Prof. Letticia Moja (Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences).
Photo: Stephen Collett

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

Women constitute about 30% of student enrolment in African universities, and only about 6% of African professors are women. This is according to the chairperson of Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town, Prof Amina Mama.

Prof Mama was delivering a lecture on the topic “Rethinking African Universities” as part of Women’s Day celebrations at the University of the Free State (UFS) today.

She says the gender profile suggests that the majority of the women who work in African universities are not academics and researchers, but rather the providers of secretarial, cleaning, catering, student welfare and other administrative and support services.

She said that African universities continue to display profound gender bias in their students and staffing profiles and, more significantly, are deeply inequitable in their institutional and intellectual cultures. She said women find it difficult to succeed at universities as they are imbued with patriarchal values and assumptions that affect all aspects of life and learning.

She said that even though African universities have never excluded women, enrolling them presents only the first hurdle in a much longer process.

“The research evidence suggests that once women have found their way into the universities, then gender differentiations continue to arise and to affect the experience and performance of women students in numerous ways. Even within single institutions disparities manifest across the levels of the hierarchy, within and across faculties and disciplines, within and between academic and administrative roles, across generations, and vary with class and social background, marital status, parental status, and probably many more factors besides these”, she said.

She lamented the fact that there is no field of study free of gender inequalities, particularly at postgraduate levels and in the higher ranks of academics. “Although more women study the arts, social sciences and humanities, few make it to professor and their research and creative output remains less”, she said.

Prof Mama said gender gaps as far as employment of women within African universities is concerned are generally wider than in student enrolment. She said although many women are employed in junior administrative and support capacities, there continues to be gross under-representation of women among senior administrative and academic staff. She said this disparity becomes more pronounced as one moves up the ranks.

“South African universities are ahead, but they are not as radically different as their policy rhetoric might suggest. A decade and a half after the end of apartheid only three of the 23 vice-chancellors in the country are women, and women fill fewer than 30% of the senior positions (Deans, Executive Directors and Deputy Vice-Chancellors)”, she said.

She made an observation that highly qualified women accept administrative positions as opposed to academic work, thus ensuring that men continue to dominate the ranks of those defined as ‘great thinkers’ or ‘accomplished researchers’.

“Perhaps women simply make realistic career choices, opting out of academic competition with male colleagues who they can easily perceive to be systematically advantaged, not only within the institution, but also on the personal and domestic fronts, which still see most African women holding the baby, literally and figuratively”, she said

She also touched on sexual harassment and abuse which she said appears to be a commonplace on African campuses. “In contexts where sexual transactions are a pervasive feature of academic life, women who do succeed are unlikely to be perceived as having done so on the basis of merit or hard work, and may be treated with derision and disbelief”, she said.

She, however, said in spite of broader patterns of gender and class inequality in universities, public higher education remains a main route to career advancement and mobility for women in Africa.

“Women’s constrained access has therefore posed a constraint to their pursuit of more equitable and just modes of political, economic and social development, not to mention freedom from direct oppression”, she said.

Prof Mama concluded by saying, “There is a widely held agreement that there is a need to rethink our universities and to ensure that they are transformed into institutions more compatible with the democratic and social justice agendas that are now leading Africa beyond the legacies of dictatorship, conflict and economic crisis, beyond the deep social divisions and inequalities that have characterised our history”.

She said rethinking universities means asking deeper questions about gender relations within them, and taking concerted and effective action to transform these privileged bastions of higher learning so that they can fulfil their pubic mandate and promise instead of lagging behind our steadily improving laws and policies.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za  
02 August 2007
 

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