Where women predominate in universities but few lead

If you ask any Kazakhstani academic – be it a man or a woman – if there is a gender problem in higher education in Kazakhstan, you will surely be told ‘No’.

First, women dominate in higher education. As noted in the National Science Report, “the majority of high-skilled cadres are women, most of whom are of reproductive age”. Women constitute 53% of those with a degree at masters level or above; they also make up 60% of doctoral candidates, 70% of students in residency and more than 50% of undergraduate students.

It is a fact that the teaching faculty in many Kazakhstani universities is female-dominated. Ageing professors are replaced by young people, and women again predominate in the younger age group.


However, globally, in the sphere of higher education, there is a gender asymmetry in the distribution of academic, scientific and administrative positions. It is expressed in the formula “the higher the position, the fewer the women” (see, for example, data collected by the Equality Challenge Unit in the UK).

According to gender researchers, “universities are characterised by a hierarchical division of labour that is asymmetrically valued and rewarded”.

Medium- and especially low-level positions are typically done by women: assistants, lecturers, office registrar staff, accounting office, HR, library, etc. Women still remain the backbone of universities, performing the most difficult and routine work.

Research requirements

In order to satisfy the increasing requirements set by the Ministry of Education and Science for all universities, teaching faculty are forced to get grants for research projects, be published in international journals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science, present papers at international conferences and lead student start-ups.

The creativity, energy, innovation and high achievement that senior management demands from its staff are sometimes incompatible with the amount of work they have to do. It is not surprising that by the end of the year, faculty and administrative staff suffer from exhaustion and anxiety, leading to apathy.

A question that is relevant to all universities of Kazakhstan is how can they achieve high performance in R&D from routinely overloaded teachers and what is the impact on women in particular? My research looked at one university.

The teaching-research dilemma

In Kazakh National Women’s Teacher Training University, women are over-represented among full professors, senior administrators, teaching experts and those who implement university policies, support corporate culture, evaluate candidates being recruited for faculty and administrative roles, collect data and prepare documentation for national and international accreditations, promote student research and academic excellence, refresh and upgrade educational programmes, etc.

For my research I conducted a survey entitled ‘Research Work at the University’ in June 2018. In total, 421 professors and lecturers at Kazakh National Women’s Teacher Training University were interviewed.

The survey showed that 59% of respondents prefer teaching to research. Asked “if you had a choice between teaching and research, what would you prefer now?” 29 people answered “only teaching”, 220 people said “mainly teaching and a little research”, 112 people chose “a little teaching but mainly research”, only research work was chosen by five people and 55 people abstained or found it difficult to answer the question.

Trying to understand the motivation for those who chose doing research was the core purpose of the survey. The results showed that the main motivation is an academic interest in doing research. The second motivation is that academics need to do research to obtain the academic title of associate professor or professor from the Ministry of Education and Science.

The main demotivating factors with regard to research are a lack of time, too much paperwork, a lack of English language ability and family responsibilities.

The survey also highlighted the need to place research productivity and the motivation for conducting research projects in the wider context of the gendered circumstances of female teaching faculty – with the deep work-life dilemmas that they face.

To be good educators and professionals in their subjects, women in Kazakhstani academia face challenges such as:

• • Their expressed preference to teach over doing research;
  
  
• • The pressurised routine of teaching work, which leaves no time or energy for serious research (especially when there is no research grant);
  
  
• • The difficulty of getting a research grant from the Ministry of Education and Science;
  
  
• • The fact that not many female teachers speak English fluently, presenting an obstacle to participation in international conferences, collaborative projects and publishing articles in ranked journals;
  
  
• • Cultural and social expectations on women to be good mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc.

That is, they face extra challenges to male researchers.

Feminism and gender equality came to the Republic of Kazakhstan in the mid-1990s. Since then, the women's movement has won many significant victories. Yet a lot of questions, such as who does research and why, are still critical.

I am glad that for the past 20 years, courses on gender policy have been taught at universities in Kazakhstan and dissertations on gender issues are defended. A new generation of feminists has emerged who creatively and boldly raise issues of gender in research, society, politics, economics, culture and the media.

FemAgora, a week of gender equality took place in Almaty, the business capital of Kazakhstan, from 1 March to 7 March 2019. This highlighted that gender issues are everywhere, including in higher education.

Dr Svetlana Shakirova is director of the department for research and innovations at the Kazakh National Women’s Teacher Training University. She is co-founder and director of the Almaty-based NGOs 'Feminist League' and 'Center for Gender Studies'.