TY - JOUR
T1 - Gender Perspectives on Academic Leadership in African Universities
AU - Diab, Roseanne
AU - Kalele, Phyllis
AU - Bulani, Muthise
AU - Boateng, Fred K.
AU - Mukeshimana, Madeleine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, International Network for Higher Education in Africa, University of Kwazulu-Natal. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Women are under-represented in higher education leadership across the globe, with the gender gap in Africa being even more pronounced. This article reports gender-disaggregated statistics for senior academic leadership at 16 African research-intensive universities. The gender gap at the level of Vice-Chancellor (VC), the executive head of the university, is striking and is replicated at each leadership level. Women represented only 13% of VCs, half the universities had fewer than 50% women in their executive teams and half had fewer than 30% female Deans. The article also presents the results of an online survey instrument that was administered to faculty members at Deans’ level and above at six of the institutions spread across South Africa, Ghana, and Rwanda to gain insights into women’s academic leadership. Women ranked competence and experience as the most important factors in their leadership accession, indicative of belief in their own abilities and self-worth. They expressed a need for mentoring, measures to address discrimination and greater visibility. A wide gap was evident in men’s and women’s understanding of obstacles to more women occupying leadership positions. Men placed responsibility for the gender gap on women, stating that few are suitably qualified, and that women do not aspire to senior leadership positions. For their part, women pointed to systemic institutional failures as responsible for their under-representation.
AB - Women are under-represented in higher education leadership across the globe, with the gender gap in Africa being even more pronounced. This article reports gender-disaggregated statistics for senior academic leadership at 16 African research-intensive universities. The gender gap at the level of Vice-Chancellor (VC), the executive head of the university, is striking and is replicated at each leadership level. Women represented only 13% of VCs, half the universities had fewer than 50% women in their executive teams and half had fewer than 30% female Deans. The article also presents the results of an online survey instrument that was administered to faculty members at Deans’ level and above at six of the institutions spread across South Africa, Ghana, and Rwanda to gain insights into women’s academic leadership. Women ranked competence and experience as the most important factors in their leadership accession, indicative of belief in their own abilities and self-worth. They expressed a need for mentoring, measures to address discrimination and greater visibility. A wide gap was evident in men’s and women’s understanding of obstacles to more women occupying leadership positions. Men placed responsibility for the gender gap on women, stating that few are suitably qualified, and that women do not aspire to senior leadership positions. For their part, women pointed to systemic institutional failures as responsible for their under-representation.
KW - Africa
KW - gender
KW - gender gap
KW - higher education
KW - women’s leadership
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189024482&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.6017/ijahe.v10i2.17619
DO - 10.6017/ijahe.v10i2.17619
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85189024482
SN - 2313-5069
VL - 10
SP - 138
EP - 159
JO - International Journal of African Higher Education
JF - International Journal of African Higher Education
IS - 2
ER -