Urgent need to narrow the gender gap in African academia

African universities need to narrow the gap between men and women in academic positions by creating opportunities and encouraging more females to enter academia, says Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela, vice-provost for international affairs and global strategic studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States.

She was delivering a keynote presentation on “The Pursuit of Excellence and Innovation through Partnership” at the recent 7th African Network for Internationalisation of Education – ANIE – conference held in Ghana's capital Accra.

Mabokela said: “The persistent, glaring absence of women in academic positions across many African universities, particularly in senior academic ranks, continues to be a challenge.”

She blamed this on the fact that “most of the research that examines gender issues in education in Sub-Saharan Africa has focused intensely on the education of girls in the primary and secondary education sectors”, without attention being paid to what pertains at the tertiary level.

Noting that universities have not been able to bring about required change, even though some attempts have been put in motion, Mabokela said: “Unfortunately, decades of neglect in the higher education sector have manifest into seemingly insurmountable challenges, characterised by poor infrastructure, under-resourced facilities, brain drain of the most talented and the burgeoning demand for higher education across the African continent.”

In the current era of globalisation, she said, African universities would need to position themselves strategically to be influential players in the higher education landscape by harnessing collective talents to create innovative spaces where both men and women can contribute to development.

Bringing about change

Mabokela said most Sub-Saharan African universities – many of which were established in the colonial era with elitist structures – had not changed and this has led to the current neglect that most institutions across the continent face.

In order to bring about change, she suggested the use of the curriculum to “bend the curve” as well as looking for ways to reduce the rural-urban divide.

African universities would need to redefine their roles as active participants in a collaborative partnership with others, and this would demand recognising the unique opportunity spaces that African universities can occupy to be innovative leaders in partnering with others.

Mabokela said the future of higher education would rely largely on partnerships – but this would depend on “preparing globally competent students, and creating the right teaching and research opportunities for faculty as well as putting in place strategic partnerships”.

Effective internationalisation of higher education would demand the integration of international dimensions into universities and expanding home campuses into international markets.

To be successful in this endeavour, Mabokela said, universities should engage in partnerships for development and they should be aimed at developing the capacity of higher education institutions across the continent and must be focused on how universities can integrate strategies that will increase access for students.

She cautioned against partnerships that are funded by overseas development agencies and lead to dependency and unsustainability.

In effective university partnerships, partners shared ownership of collaborative work in a relationship based on “respect, trust, transparency and reciprocity”.

“An effective educational partnership," she stressed, "is a dynamic collaborative process between educational institutions that brings mutual though not necessarily symmetrical benefits to the parties engaged.”