Gender transformation at UKZN needs 'drastic' measures

19 January 2017 - 19:18 By Roxanne Henderson
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Dr Albert van Jaarsveld.
Dr Albert van Jaarsveld.
Image: Waldo Swiegers

Female graduates at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) outstrip their male counterparts by at least 9‚000 annually‚ yet gender transformation at the institution still has a long way to go.

These were the Commission for Gender Equality's (CGE) preliminary findings into transformation at the university‚ presented in Johannesburg on Thursday.

UKZN vice chancellor Dr Albert van Jaarsveld appeared before the commission to answer further questions.

The commission's legal officer Mlondolozi Vava said women are poorly represented in top management at the university and that it has only 60 female professors and associate professors‚ compared with 164 men.

While great strides have been made at the senior management level‚ men still lead the pack with 24 employees‚ compared with 15 female employees.

Vava said the commission had not seen programmes to promote gender equality and discrimination awareness by the university.

The university appeared to have equally poor communication of its sexual harassment policy‚ with the commission unable to find evidence of sexual harassment campaigns.

“UKZN has challenges in formulating and implementing well-defined gender equity mechanisms. The GCE concludes that the university needs to adopt drastic and robust mechanisms to promote gender transformation‚” Vava said.

Van Jaarsveld took the commission through various programmes women are benefitting from at the university‚ like tuition remission schemes and scholarships for black women.

He also said that the university condemns sexual violence against women.

Last year students protested at UKZN‚ following the alleged rape of a female student by police during fee hike protests.

Van Jaarsveld gave examples of three sexual harassment cases the university dealt with recently‚ in which one staff male staff member was dismissed.

The commission will later release a final report on the state of transformation at institutions of higher learning. Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand are among the universities that have already appeared before it.

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