MEC for Finance and Economic Development and Tourism, Alan Winde
Distinguished Guests from Namibia and Rwanda
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good morning to you all and it’s a pleasure to be here today.
“Women hold up half the sky”.
This is a Chinese proverb that is attributed to Chairman Mao, but I think is derived from Confucius. I am not sure that Mao and Confucius, living in different centuries and attached to different political ideologies, would have agreed on its meaning.
Nonetheless, the proverb has come to have a progressive meaning today and most women seem to know that it means winning full emancipation, full equality, and a full recognition of their talents.
Look at the global consequences of inequality. More women die in wars than men. More women live in poverty than men. More women are unemployed than men.
When we use women’s talents, then we all benefit. When use women’s talents, we build a better world.
China’s amazing economic success over the past 30 years did not come from hiding women’s talents in the home. It came from bringing women out of the home and into the world of work.
South African women do not and did not have to learn from the Chinese.
We have a long history of struggling for both political and economic emancipation.
South African women organised and rose to the political challenge of fighting for their freedom.
Out of this triumphant organisation of resistance to oppression came the legendary slogan: “Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo”.
In union affairs, it is women who focused on the most disadvantaged workers and fought vigorously for better conditions of work.
In political organisations, women placed the gender agenda at the forefront of debate and action.
In the education sector, women led and lead the charge to equal access for all.
Today, South Africa has achieved a general level of gender equality - in no small measure shaped by our constitution, 17 years old this year - that has only been accomplished in other countries after many decades of democracy.
For the first time we have large numbers of women in Parliament. For the first time, we have a substantial number of women as school principals. For the first time, we have women as vice chancellors. For the first time, we have women heading up state owned enterprises.
And we have women as business executives in South Africa, although not enough women are members of boards. An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) OECD report (we are an aspirant OECD member) published this week finds that women occupied only one in ten board seats in listed companies in OECD countries in 2009. Of course, that is an average and Norway does far better while Germany does far worse.
I will be prepared to bet that members of the Cape Chamber have a better gender record on average than the OECD!
You have, for the first time in close in two centuries, chosen a woman as Executive Director.
Despite progressive government policy, we have not yet created a comprehensive and systematic approach to structuring key impact programmes affecting the worst forms of gender inequality.
I want to make four points about gender inequality in education.
First, we have not fully addressed the participation and performance of girls and women in science and technology.
Women are not encouraged to be scientists. In fact, as most of you here know: you were actively discouraged by your parents or your school and even your university.
Girls and women are not supposed to be good at maths or science. And it shows in the studies of performance in maths and science in school. Boys do better, because they are encouraged to do better. And it often gets no better at university.
While girls are taking scientific and technical subjects in greater numbers, their participation rates are still much lower than men, at schools, colleges and universities.
It is important to note that this is not a specific South African problem, and that many developed countries have struggled with gender inequalities in the science field.
However, it is important for changing attitudes that scientific fields are the domain of men, and for building a wider skills base in these fields in South Africa, that inequalities in the sector are addressed.
Second, access, success, and drop-out are gender specific.
Poverty is a major factor affecting the participation of both girls and boys in the education system.
The challenges of accessing quality education and remaining in educational institutions are greatest for poor people.
Girls have work commitments that can take them away from schooling, the effect of HIV on families often leaves girls with heavy family care burdens, and schoolgirl pregnancy can have a negative effect on girls’ chances of continuing their education.
They also impact on teachers and schools, as they often face a burden of care in responding to the social problems that learners face.
The higher dropout rate of boys at the secondary school level is an area of concern. It has serious knock-on effects at university level – a gender imbalance that is growing in South Africa. Already some girls are struggling to find life partners with a similar education level, a reversal of the situation barely 30 years ago.
Third, girls are the victims of gender-based violence at school and university and college.
Sexual harassment and violence can have destroyed the prospects for girls in education and in life.
While we do not always have reliable statistics, we cannot deny the violence and the damage.
Speaking of which, we have all been shocked by the revelations of the recent report into the condition of student accommodation at and around our universities.
Fourth, curriculum responsiveness and pedagogy is a gender issue.
Although the school curriculum includes a Life Orientation curriculum that addresses some important issues relating to gender, very little support has been given to addressing gender equity in the formal and informal curricula of schools or universities.
The focus should be on teaching approaches and learning materials being gender sensitive, as well as on teaching young people to be gender-responsive and gender-aware.
Let me say a word or two specifically about science.
Our lives have been improved immeasurably by science, engineering and medicine. They have provided us with fast transport and communications, safer and better accommodation, better medical care, abundant energy, reliable and clean water and food, and infrastructures to support all these necessities.
Science has helped us gain an understanding of how human activity is warming the climate, and what impact that will have on food and water security, and, crucially, what needs to be done to slow or reverse the warming trend.
Engineering offers us practical ways to meet these challenges by developing clean energy sources and transforming our ageing buildings and transport technologies so that they are efficient and sustainable.
There is always one particular breakthrough in science and technology that each of us counts as special - the growth of the internet, the first heart transplant, the discovery of Australopithecus Sediba.
For women the breakthrough last year in the prevention of AIDS is particularly significant – the proof that ARV treatment is also a prevention of transmission to a partner – because women are particularly at risk of HIV infection.
We want more women to become scientists.
Yet the peculiar thing is that while we now have a gender balance in favour of women at university, there is a postgraduate research balance in favour of men.
This is not something that I know about in the abstract. I am the mother of a daughter who has just completed her PhD in genetics. I am keenly aware of the challenges she faces as a woman in a man’s world.
We all need mentors but women perhaps need mentoring of a special kind at university in the sciences.
We need interventions in favour of developing women in research, not only for its own sake but also to compensate for women’s dual careers at home and work.
Some practical interventions are already in place: the provision of equipment grants; special conference funding; workshops in publication and writing skills; postgraduate grants and research fellowships for women, special concessions for study leave (including lecturing replacements), as well as active institutional communication about research opportunities.
Without incentives that support and recognise women in research, significant change is unlikely to take place.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that significant progress has been made in South Africa with regards to the issues facing women in education.
We recognise our national and international obligations in relation to addressing inequalities between men and women in the education system, and we need to move beyond a demographic transformation to address the qualitative experiences of young people in the education system at all levels.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of all women throughout the world towards our struggle for liberation.
