Programme director, Ms Connie Ferguson
Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs Naledi Pandor
Director-General of Science and Technology, Dr Phil Mjwara
Representatives of the co-sponsors of the SA Women in Science
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a privilege and great honour for me to be invited to give remarks on an occasion that marks the achievements of women in science. I am sure you will all agree that in the backdrop of this occasion, we are still being confronted by the fact that there are few women who attain these achievements, not only in science but in many sectors of our societal development.
So, a celebration of this nature is still underlined by the fact that it is not a norm but an exception. In other words, it is still a shock to our system. There is still very little that we achieve regarding women participation and achievement in science.
A graphic and unfortunate illustration of the hurdles facing women (in this case literally) is the sexist if not racist reaction to the achievement of a gold medal by South Africa's new golden girl, Caster Semenya. Incidentally she is a first year university student studying sports science and is potentially a future woman scientist who may one day sit among you here. This attitude is extremely offensive and must be strongly condemned by all. We must also fight the tendency in society to find explanations, other than excellent performance, for achievements by women.
A challenge that faces all of us is to change this situation so that these occasions that celebrate the achievements of women are not rare occurrences, but become a celebration of the best from a pool of many best, and a celebration of equality, non-sexism and all forms of non-discriminatory practices as ideals enshrined in our Constitution. These celebrations should embody our achievement of humanity, for the liberation of women and their achievements thereof are liberation and achievements of the society. This was true in the past and it is still true today. Our freedom shall remain incomplete for as long as women are not free as freedom is indivisible.
Programme director,
Let me begin by congratulating all the recipients of the Women in Science Awards. We are well aware that your achievements came through after many painful sacrifices that you had to endure and in some cases many hard choices that you had to make. So you have made it to where you are today against all odds, for, as usual, success does not come cheap.
When we think of women oppression, and then their achievements such as we are celebrating today, we should not only think of people that have overcome apartheid, but we should stop and think that this is the majority of our society that goes through daily subjection to discrimination, patronisation and marginalisation, simply because they are women. There is the issue of negative stereotypes about women's roles and abilities that we should persistently fight until one day that battle is won.
Therefore, we should all turn the achievements such as these we are celebrating today, into about changing lives of the large majority of women, especially in the rural areas, whose daily lives are still defined by naked sufferings in the hands of poverty, oppressive practices and sexism. This is another challenge to all of us, to use our skills and to use our expertise, to make change where it matters most.
It is however not enough to celebrate, it is important how you employ your skills to help uplift other women and society as a whole. We need to fight a dog eat dog mentality and truly live by what President Jacob Zuma has correctly observed: "To educate a woman is to educate a nation".
In order to do this, we must fight against all forms of artificial empowerment and window dressing. One of the key areas for uplifting women is to address the needs of rural women, particularly in light of government’s prioritisation of rural development.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have been asked to talk about an overview of our plan, as Higher education and Training, to increase the participation of women in science. Indeed, one of our challenges is to increase participation of women in all sectors of human resources. It is indeed gratifying to note that in 2007 there were more women graduates in higher education than men, with a ratio of one male graduate to four female graduates. It is even more heartening to note that in Science, Engineering and Technology there were almost 1:1 male to female graduates.
As a result of government efforts, there have also been improvements in women post-graduates in Science, Engineering and Technology, accounting for 42% of all research Masters and 38% of all Doctoral graduates in the same year. Of course, this is not enough because women comprise more than 54% of all enrolments in the higher education system. We are committed to increasing these targets especially through a higher graduate throughput with a particular focus on women.
Nonetheless, to us the challenge is broader than increasing the numbers, specifically in Science only, and it is stretches far beyond the reach of Higher Education and Training. You may be aware of a Ministerial Report on racial and gender based discrimination in higher education institutions which we recently released. We plan to convene a higher education summit to deal with the disturbing findings of the Soudien report and other matters related to transformation in higher education. We invite you to also make submissions to this summit; we will announce the modalities closer to the time.
Our universities, in particular, should be directing their research focus to address the development and social needs of our communities. The impact of their research should be measured by how much difference it makes to the needs of our communities, rather than by just how many international citations researchers receive in their publications. Therefore, in awarding excellence in research due consideration should be given to how much change has happened as a result of research from our institutions of higher learning, including improving the living conditions of the majority of our people most of whom are women.
Besides having a goal-oriented and performance-related Funding Framework of higher education institutions, my department is working on having a framework for funding research development, which shall be aimed at addressing the existing imbalances, including addressing fewer numbers of women participating in research as well as those graduating Masters and PhDs. We also have a serious lack of capacity and academic staff under-qualification at our higher education institutions and research development funding will seek to address this challenge.
Furthermore, our higher education system is already in discussion on how it should grow and retain its young academics, and the topic of women in academia forms part of that discussion. I am sure you will also agree with me that developing your human resources is one thing and retaining them is a different matter altogether.
Once again, we congratulate all the recipients of awards this evening. We hope that you will remain the part of us in developing young academics and researchers in your respective areas of specialisation.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Higher Education and Training
21 August 2009
