Microsoft Word doctoral thesis final[1]. doc

Table 3.6:  Women in higher education by senior appointment, 1995-1999. 
 
1995/6 1998/9 
Post 
Total % 
Women 
Total %Women 
Professors 
Senior-lecturers 
and researchers  
Total 
8649 
16050 
 
24699 
8.6 
8.3 
 
8.4 
10261 
19599 
 
29860 
9.8 
21.9 
 
17.7 
(Source: Women at the Top 2000: Cracking the glass ceiling taken from Higher 
Education Statistics Agency individualised returns) 
 
Women accounted for 8.6 % of professors in 1995/6 and 9.8 % in 1998/9. Only 8.3 % 
and 21.9 % in 1995/6 and 1998/9 respectively were senior lecturers and researchers, 

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bringing the overall percentage of women in senior academic positions to 8.4 % and 
17.7%  between 1995/6 and 1998/9 (Ross  2000:15). 
 
Saunderson (2002) provides a clear picture of the historical and current position of 
academic women in British universities. She notes that in 1931 women comprised only 
13  % of teaching staff…a figure which remained constant from the 1970s right up until 
the 1970s (Saunderson 2002:377). But following the 1992 Further and Higher Education 
Act which saw an increase in the number of UK universities and the concomitant 
establishment of more academic posts, the position of women improved from 13 % to 
 35 %. 
 
Despite this increase in academic staff representation, women by and large occupy 25 % 
of all senior positions in UK universities and hold 53 % of all part-time academic posts 
(Saunderson 2002:377). Of those employed as full-time staff, almost one third (about 31 
%) are on fixed term contracts, which places them at a disadvantage financially and in 
terms of career advancement. In terms of vertical segregation “women comprise 23 % of 
senior lecturers and only 10 % of professors as figures from the Committee of Vice-
Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) 2000 indicate (Saunderson 2002). In terms of career 
advancement, statistics for 2002 from the National Association of Teachers in Further 
and Higher Education( NATFHE ) showed only 13 % of all fulltime UK female 
academics progressing to senior lecturer level compared to 22 % of males and that only 4 
% of all female academics progress to the level of professor compared to 14 % males 
(Saunderson 2002:378). From 1994-95 to 1998-9 the overall proportion of female 
professors in higher education institutions increased by 2.6 % only. There are even fewer 
women at the higher levels of university management and scholarship. Out of 76 
university status institutions, there were only five women vice chancellors and only four 
women heads of 17 general colleges of higher education. These figures are provided by 
Woodward (2000:44) and cited in Saunderson (2002:378). As in the situation of the 
South African higher education, inequities still exist in UK universities despite several 
years of the existence of Equal Opportunities and equal treatment legislation and the 
Equal pay Act. As Saunderson sees it, all this amounts to “little more than ‘lipstick on the 
gorilla’”. 

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64
 
It is evident from the statistics provided above, that in both SA and the UK, women still 
lag behind men both in their representation in the universities and in senior academic 
positions and ranks. What is even more obvious in SA universities is that the 
representation is racially skewed, with white male and female academics better 
represented in senior positions. This seems to point in one direction – that of an over-
representation of one racial/cultural group in management positions (most likely, white 
male academics, followed by white female academics). The racially skewed numbers of 
academic personnel in both HAUs and HDUs, means there would be a correspondingly 
racially skewed number of academic HoDs at these institutional types. It would not be 
surprising therefore to encounter a university with very few or no African heads of 
department.  Although there have been significant improvements in some universities due 
in part to employment equity, the gender gap in academic ranks and positions of 
leadership and management  is still unacceptably wide in both countries. Although their 
numbers have increased over the years they are still in the minority in senior academic 
and administrative positions.  
 
However, they seem to have made more progress than their South African counterparts. 
But again, as with the South African position, the data are limited in that the statistics 
presented here are almost a decade old, and the position in the UK may well have 
changed by now.