Appointing women in ‘significant positions’ matters

South Africa’s 2019 Post-School Education Statistics showed there were 727 more men than women employed in the instruction and research category in South Africa’s higher education institutions compared with 5,758 more females employed in administrative categories within the higher education sector.In an interview with University World News, Professor Sibusiso Moyo, the deputy vice-chancellor for research, innovation and engagement, and the associate director and associate professor in the department of mathematics, statistics and physics at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), said the sparse representation of women in top management positions impedes on achieving the proportionate representation of women in academia.This was true particularly in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields, where the number of female students at undergraduate level shrinks by the time they get to postgraduate level, she said.

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