Date: 14/06/2005
Source: Department of Education
Title: Pandor: Launch of University of Cape Town’s transformation programme
Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, MP, at the launch of the University of Cape Town’s transformation programme
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Njabulo Ndebele
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Cheryl de la Rey
Members of the University Council and Senior Management
Representatives of donors to the university
Staff and students of the University
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event.
This public launch of your institutional transformation and employment equity initiative gives us an opportunity to focus on how the programme’s initiatives can provide added impetus to the overall transformation process at the university.
I understand that this launch places particular emphasis on the need for transformation in the area of employment equity, especially at the level of academic staff. The following staff profile dramatically illustrates the nature of the challenge facing UCT in 2005:
* Only 12 women professors out of 122
* Only 24 women associate professors out of 143
* Only 8 African professors out of 122
* Only 13 African women on an academic staff of 812
* An academic staff ratio of 3 men to 1 woman
* The promotion of only 4 women to professor between 1997 and 2004, in a period when 32 men professors retired (there were 150 professors in 1997 and only 122 now).
Clearly employment equity is an area where progress has been very slow.
UCT is one of the leading higher education institutions in South Africa and almost certainly in Africa. Its success in addressing equity will be an example to the rest of the sector.
The university cannot simply rely on equity plans as evidence of change. The executive needs to ensure at every level of the university that equity plans are supported and implemented.
The VC and senior colleagues must assume practical responsibility for transformation; it is not an issue that can be managed through a transformation officer working on her own.
Finding workable equity strategies will require the institution to carry out a fundamental analysis of the barriers to success. Academics may need to be challenged to take up equity in real terms. Access to fellowship programmes within a faculty or department will need to depend on a well-crafted plan of student retention, research development, and mentoring. We need more black and women students to take up postgraduate study. Strategies should be developed to encourage undergraduate students to take an interest in research, to progress to postgraduate studies, and to consider academic careers.
The emerging researcher programme at the University appears to be an important way of providing support to young researchers so that they can set off on an academic career.
It is heartening that donors are prepared to invest in long-term and complex initiatives such as these. But it is important that equity programmes are sustainable, that they are used to create permanent positions, and that they set processes in motion towards meaningful transformation. The success or failure of transformation initiatives is strongly influenced by institutional cultures. I talk of “cultures” in order to emphasise that, although an institution may have an identifiable dominant culture, different departments and sections of the university community should be able to express their identities and cultures in diverse ways. It is important to pay attention to the voices of those both opposed to and supportive of change. University communities should have a vibrant internal engagement with issues of transformation.
I have found it surprising that many university students speak of the need to inculcate a culture of debate at our universities. I had always understood universities to be the place of debate and that the absence of critical discourse in a university rendered the institution a school and not a place of intellectual discourse. Given the important African debates on development, HIV and AIDS, and democracy, our universities should lead in given national and continental direction on these issues - our campuses should be a thriving hub of lunch-time and after-dinner debate.
Why, for example, do students in many universities tell me they learn nothing about Africa, and that Africa does not feature in any of the courses they study? Why does a proposed shift to an African-centred curriculum cause a massive institutional disruption? Is it true that Africa offers no new knowledge to the world and to our students?
University cultures are strongly influenced by the historical legacies of racism, sexism and inequality in our country. These can and do appear in a number of ways in universities: in teaching styles and approaches, in employment relationships, and in communication and decision-making styles.
Members of the university community have raised concerns about many of these issues. The call they are making is for this university and others in our country, to engage in real politik about transformation.
I raise issues of institutional culture because I believe them to be strategically important to the success of transformation initiatives. Universities must find ways of tackling problems of institutional culture strategically, and making them integral to planning processes in relation to staff recruitment and retention. Through labelling and confronting issues of institutional culture, this university will give effect to its mission.
The university’s mission is to be a “world class African university”. While I am proud that we have universities in our country that can claim to be “world class”, I believe that more attention needs to be given to what it means to be an African university.
Transformation in a university is not just about changing staff or student profiles. It must be seen as a process of long-term change involving all aspects of university life.
It is timely for the university to re-commit itself to transformation, to acknowledge the support that has been received from generous donors, and to provide a fresh boost to the programmes that have been in development for many years.
In closing, I call on staff and student at UCT to focus more intensively on particular areas in which you have not achieved the changes you would like, and I would like to thank the donor community very much for its strong support to this institution, and for the benefits that will accrue to our higher education system in South Africa.
Thank you for inviting me to join you for this event.
Issued by: Department of Education
14 June 2005
Source: Department of Education
Title: Pandor: Launch of University of Cape Town’s transformation programme
Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, MP, at the launch of the University of Cape Town’s transformation programme
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Njabulo Ndebele
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Cheryl de la Rey
Members of the University Council and Senior Management
Representatives of donors to the university
Staff and students of the University
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event.
This public launch of your institutional transformation and employment equity initiative gives us an opportunity to focus on how the programme’s initiatives can provide added impetus to the overall transformation process at the university.
I understand that this launch places particular emphasis on the need for transformation in the area of employment equity, especially at the level of academic staff. The following staff profile dramatically illustrates the nature of the challenge facing UCT in 2005:
* Only 12 women professors out of 122
* Only 24 women associate professors out of 143
* Only 8 African professors out of 122
* Only 13 African women on an academic staff of 812
* An academic staff ratio of 3 men to 1 woman
* The promotion of only 4 women to professor between 1997 and 2004, in a period when 32 men professors retired (there were 150 professors in 1997 and only 122 now).
Clearly employment equity is an area where progress has been very slow.
UCT is one of the leading higher education institutions in South Africa and almost certainly in Africa. Its success in addressing equity will be an example to the rest of the sector.
The university cannot simply rely on equity plans as evidence of change. The executive needs to ensure at every level of the university that equity plans are supported and implemented.
The VC and senior colleagues must assume practical responsibility for transformation; it is not an issue that can be managed through a transformation officer working on her own.
Finding workable equity strategies will require the institution to carry out a fundamental analysis of the barriers to success. Academics may need to be challenged to take up equity in real terms. Access to fellowship programmes within a faculty or department will need to depend on a well-crafted plan of student retention, research development, and mentoring. We need more black and women students to take up postgraduate study. Strategies should be developed to encourage undergraduate students to take an interest in research, to progress to postgraduate studies, and to consider academic careers.
The emerging researcher programme at the University appears to be an important way of providing support to young researchers so that they can set off on an academic career.
It is heartening that donors are prepared to invest in long-term and complex initiatives such as these. But it is important that equity programmes are sustainable, that they are used to create permanent positions, and that they set processes in motion towards meaningful transformation. The success or failure of transformation initiatives is strongly influenced by institutional cultures. I talk of “cultures” in order to emphasise that, although an institution may have an identifiable dominant culture, different departments and sections of the university community should be able to express their identities and cultures in diverse ways. It is important to pay attention to the voices of those both opposed to and supportive of change. University communities should have a vibrant internal engagement with issues of transformation.
I have found it surprising that many university students speak of the need to inculcate a culture of debate at our universities. I had always understood universities to be the place of debate and that the absence of critical discourse in a university rendered the institution a school and not a place of intellectual discourse. Given the important African debates on development, HIV and AIDS, and democracy, our universities should lead in given national and continental direction on these issues - our campuses should be a thriving hub of lunch-time and after-dinner debate.
Why, for example, do students in many universities tell me they learn nothing about Africa, and that Africa does not feature in any of the courses they study? Why does a proposed shift to an African-centred curriculum cause a massive institutional disruption? Is it true that Africa offers no new knowledge to the world and to our students?
University cultures are strongly influenced by the historical legacies of racism, sexism and inequality in our country. These can and do appear in a number of ways in universities: in teaching styles and approaches, in employment relationships, and in communication and decision-making styles.
Members of the university community have raised concerns about many of these issues. The call they are making is for this university and others in our country, to engage in real politik about transformation.
I raise issues of institutional culture because I believe them to be strategically important to the success of transformation initiatives. Universities must find ways of tackling problems of institutional culture strategically, and making them integral to planning processes in relation to staff recruitment and retention. Through labelling and confronting issues of institutional culture, this university will give effect to its mission.
The university’s mission is to be a “world class African university”. While I am proud that we have universities in our country that can claim to be “world class”, I believe that more attention needs to be given to what it means to be an African university.
Transformation in a university is not just about changing staff or student profiles. It must be seen as a process of long-term change involving all aspects of university life.
It is timely for the university to re-commit itself to transformation, to acknowledge the support that has been received from generous donors, and to provide a fresh boost to the programmes that have been in development for many years.
In closing, I call on staff and student at UCT to focus more intensively on particular areas in which you have not achieved the changes you would like, and I would like to thank the donor community very much for its strong support to this institution, and for the benefits that will accrue to our higher education system in South Africa.
Thank you for inviting me to join you for this event.
Issued by: Department of Education
14 June 2005
Advertisement
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
