Swedes' image tarnished on sex equality

The biggest international gathering on higher education ever took place in Paris last week. David Jobbins reports on how participants saw their role

Sweden, regarded as a model for sexual equality, was found wanting in the area of higher education during a debate on women and higher education.

In their keynote address, Berit Olsson and Christina Ullenius presented research showing that in Swedish colleges and universities - where four years ago 93 per cent of professors were men - men were rated higher at job interviews in otherwise equal circumstances and appointments committee members favoured applicants they knew.

Four years ago Sweden started to redress the balance. Education minister Carl Tham created new positions for women from postgraduate to professorial levels in scientific fields, where they account for only a fifth of graduates, and in gender research.

Promising signs included more women in top positions, recruitment drives, more gender awareness among students, gender studies courses and chairs for such subjects as political science with gender perspective.

Peter Katjavivi, vice-chancellor of Namibia University, identified women's limited access to higher education as a barrier to participation in decision-making. Only a third as many women as men enrol in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Unesco's Mary-Louise Kearney said the agency was working towards inclusion of gender in academic disciplines, training, research, advocacy and monitoring and inter-university cooperation, through the Unesco chairs programme and networks.

Barriers preventing women taking decision-making roles included stress through doing two jobs, career interruptions and cultural stereotyping, she said.

Chairwoman Attiya Inauatullah, president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation of Pakistan, said higher education had much to do for women throughout the world, where they represent 66 per cent of illiterates.

When Unesco sent out invitations, said Ms Inauatullah, it requested that delegations should comprise at least 30 per cent women but actual female attendance was 20 per cent. She called on Unesco to run a women-only education training and administration course.

Meanwhile a study of 116,000 university staff in 30 Commonwealth countries showed big variations of the proportion of full-time women academics but no discernible difference between developed and developing countries.

Representation ranges from 9.5 per cent in Ghana and 9.7 per cent in Zimbabwe to 31.8 in Mauritius and an atypical 50.2 per cent in Jamaica, which is represented by just one institution (the University of Technology).

The West Indies as a whole scored 26 per cent, much closer to the 23.9 per cent average in the study, derived by the Association of Commonwealth Universities from data on its member institutions. Of the larger university systems, Australia recorded 29.6 per cent, South Africa 26.1, and UK 24.7.

The ACU figures disclosed that 9.9 per cent of the Commonwealth's 18,000-plus professors and 15.2 per cent of 8,123 heads of department were women, while just 6.9 per cent of vice-chancellors or executive heads were women.

A Single Sex Profession? Female Staff Numbers in Commonwealth Universities by Helen Lund, Commonwealth Higher Education Management Service, 36 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PF;1998; Pounds 15