Comparative international experiences in promoting women's participation and position in the science, engineering and technology fields : possible models for South Africa

Abstract

A country's science base is recognised universally as the foundation of its economy. In South Africa, the government emphasizes the National System of Innovation (NSI) as a means to secure economic growth, poverty alleviation and sustainable global competitiveness. And yet more than half of the country's population is largely excluded from participating and progressing in science, engineering and technology (SET) sectors. Like elsewhere around the globe, in the South African public science system, women are younger and less qualified than men; they study and work primarily in disciplines traditionally dominated by their gender and consequently less valued in terms of scientific contribution; and they receive a smaller portion of research grants and work. In the private sector, they are equally at a disadvantage being horizontally segregated to less valued disciplines, and vertically and contractually segregated at lower, less permanent positions. This is an important issue because in order to address its skills shortage, low productivity and need for greater innovation, South Africa has to unleash the potential of women in this area. Without female insight, creativity and experience, knowledge generation and technological development - in the public sector and business alike - would be narrow, biased and incomplete. Everyone should have equal access to a SET education and the possible job opportunities the field offers. However, more importantly, all members of society should benefit equally from, and have the possibility to influence SET innovations as they improve the quality of our lives and produce employment and wealth creation opportunities. The barriers to women's attraction, recruitment, retention and progression m SET careers are well-established. Among others, they stem from gender stereotyping, self-efficacy doubts, poor support for reconciliation between family and work life demands, and the predominantly mate SET image, culture, networks and standards for scientific enquiry. Many interventions have been developed to overcome these barriers and encourage more females to enter and remain in SET fields. International institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations (UN), have, at the global level, endorsed such instruments for change as effective measures. These instruments include, but are not restricted to gender-mainstreaming efforts, mentorship programmes, networking, funding (scholarships, bursaries and faculty chairs), disaggregated gender statistics and awareness-raising initiatives such as role model promotion. This study briefly highlights some of these international experiences, but focuses primarily on resource centres for women in SET as a preferred and effective means to tackle women's under-representation in the sector. Women's resource centres (WRCs) are exceptional in their ability to consolidate many, if not all, of the internationally-endorsed approaches and implement them - through partnerships and involving a wide stakeholder base - in a holistic manner, based on the life cycle approach. The central objective of this research is to assess whether commonalities exist across observed WRCs in terms of context, stakeholder involvement, services and other critical success factors and to present these as good practice for a WRC organisational model. Research in this report is based on case studies of five approaches from Finland, South Korea, Sweden, the UK and the US. No developing country WRC example was readily available. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. Senior management from three WRCs, focusing on women in SET (two national and one regional), and two national nonsector specific WRCs completed a comprehensive questionnaire. Some telephone interviews were conducted for clarification purposes. The findings revealed commonalities in terms of 1) how each Centre achieved legitimacy; 2) the kind of stakeholders who needed to be involved, to what extent and why; 3) the main areas of focus and the types of services which should be provided to meet objectives; 4) the presence of core competencies; 5) the use of partnerships to enhance the Centre's work; 6) the basic level of resources needed and key cost drivers; and 7) the evaluation and control mechanisms to ensure continuous development. As the questionnaire was open and based on experience and perceptions, the findings also revealed some personal insights into possible challenges and opportunities when establishing a Centre. It is important to note several limitations of this study, namely that it focuses on WRCs in developed economies and does not examine interventions targeted at pre-university education or those with developmental objectives. In South Africa, emphasis is placed on education and skills, while poverty alleviation makes these issues central to any effort focused on women in SET. Although an off-the-shelf model is neither available, nor appropriate in the developing country context, significant learnings could be gained from the experiences of those intimate with the resource centre approach and its effectiveness in addressing the under-representation of women in SET fields. The author hopes the findings set out in this research would be useful and form the basis of further investigation into the possibility of establishing a South African Resource Centre for Women in SET.