Ramón Gutiérrez: contextualismo bonetiano

At this point, I examine the notion of inclusion in African universities and the move towards greater participation, which has become an urgent imperative since the onset of post-colonial HE in Africa.

Zeleza and Olukoshi (2004) focus on women’s experiences and roles in African universities and how such institutions could direct HE in Africa in the twenty-first century. The study offers a fundamental discourse on the notion of access to knowledge for post-colonial African society, as well as issues that revolve around equal opportunities and gender equality.

In the discourse, access implies all efforts and measures taken by African higher education institutions to widen educational opportunities for all citizens as AHE moved into the twenty-first century (Zeleza & Olukoshi, 2004). Different contributors to this volume deal with different issues that are regarded as crucial for Africa to move into the new century. For instance, Okeke inquires whether women are partners with or cheerleaders for men in AHE. Her response is that, despite political independence and modernisation in Africa, the role of women in the modern economy has been and still is limited to that of wives and mothers. For this reason, women remain excluded from decisions and actions that define nation building (Okeke, 2004: 480). Okeke’s argument is significant, as it builds on Kwesiga’s analysis of women’s access to AHE. In her view, the fast-growing privatisation of HE in Africa challenges and poses a threat to women’s progress in achieving internal inclusion at all levels of society.

Furthermore, she poses a critical question ─ “what is the purpose of HE for African women?” In response, she calls for a move beyond an inadequate form of women’s access within a general expansion that would establish a genuine form of inclusion. It should be noted that Okeke’s framework debunks taking women’s formal access for granted, and demands epistemological access. She points out that any measures aimed at raising African women’s profile in HE should re-examine the content and utility of this training, with particular reference to the barriers preventing women from participating in nation building as full citizens and partners with men (Okeke, 2004: 480-486). Her disquiet about the position of women in HE provoked the question whether they are partners with or just mere cheerleaders for men. This shows how external exclusion is addressed, as women are statistically and physically visible in HE but, unlike men, their voices are not considered, and this indicates a form of internal exclusion. For Okeke, attention should be paid to the type of training women receive, which may instil in them the ability to participate as full citizens in all developmental deliberations. The presupposition is that only when women are well trained will they acquire full citizenship through participation at the same rate as men.

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Therefore, she argues that, if women are to participate fully and effectively in their countries’

development, sufficient provision has to be made for them in terms of both access and distribution in the various fields of specialisation (Okeke, 2004: 486). In other words, the defender of access as inclusion ought to consider women’s backgrounds, struggles and their gender or status in society.

This implies that women’s exclusion could be linked to their individual position in the society. For instance, if a woman is from a poor family, with limited knowledge, widowed, divorced or a single mother, her contribution to HE might be disregarded, since she is already marginalised. The point is that HE should also require women, as they progress through the system, to question the various facets of the present social arrangement that impede women’s inclusion (Okeke, 2004:

491).

For instance, an educated African woman should not simply accept the social dictates that define women’s access to land, the treatment of widows, and the cultural myths surrounding, among other things, female circumcision. Interestingly, Okeke regards the distribution of access as a process of ascertaining that women acquire inclusion in HE is limited. This means that affording women mere access in a distributive manner, that is external inclusion, can be not only an empowering activity, but also a disempowering one. This is because women may just accept their presence, without being able to claim equal space and rights to contribute to democratic processes through a voice, a way of attaining internal inclusion. It is puzzling that women appear complacent about being mere recipients – what Rancière’s idea of voice referred to in the previous chapter – “passive receivers”

instead of “active claimers” of equality in AHE.

In my view, although African women possibly expect distributed access, the challenge could be the type of formal access that will enable them to participate in democratic processes in HE as equal and full citizens with their male counterparts. Furthermore, HE in Africa should also question the conditions of those women’s lives and the cultural elements that justify their subordinate status in their society (Okeke, 2004: 490). The same sentiment is expressed by Kwesiga (2002), who argues that the content of women’s education from the primary level on should be questioned, since it heralds women’s representation and inclusion in HE. This view confirms the painful encounters women have in HE on the continent. It is against this background that any attempt to enhance the quality of African women’s education at the tertiary level must take into account the widespread forces that shape and influence the social conception of who they are and what they can do in relation to their male counterparts (Okeke, 2004: 488). This point is apparent in Nussbaum’s (2000) capabilities approach, which expects that, like men, women should be able to express themselves and show their abilities in HE deliberations as a way of inclusion. However, the dynamic and complex nature of the African woman does not prepare her to have the capability to express herself like her male counterpart. In my view, the call for a distributed form of access appears insufficient, as noted in the previous chapter. Thus, Africa should formulate programmes

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that transcend women’s formal access towards achieving epistemological access, which will enable them to interrogate the cultural beliefs and practices confronting their inclusion in HE.

4.3.2.1 Portrayal of women’s representation in higher education policy initiatives

In relation to policy development, Okeke (2004: 491) cautions that African governments should re-assess the hindrances to women’s access to HE and their participation in nation building as full citizens who enjoy every right to tap into existing social opportunities. She notes that the crises surrounding the participation of girls and women in schooling and paid work in Africa make a powerful statement about the roles that society has carved for them in the task of nation building when compared to their male counterparts. According to Okeke, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), like other policies, appears silent on the issue of women’s access to HE and their internal inclusion in democratic educational deliberations. She argues that it would not make sense for African leaders and policy makers to promote levels and kinds of training for women that would encourage them to aspire to positions that they are not expected to assume. It is not surprising that, in the areas of public governance and decision making, the NEPAD document points to the potential input women could make, but leaves untouched the social structures already in place that deny them the platform to be seen as an important political force to be reckoned with.

As cheerleaders for men in African political forums, women “observe”, for the most part, the machinery for public decision making (Okeke, 2004: 483; Okeke & Onu, 2006: 84-86). There are other, more significant concerns around women’s representation than the engagement in higher education deliberations. It is argued that, without women’s strong presence in such forums, the huge economic burden of social survival placed on their backs would receive the usual lip service.

Inasmuch as it does not earmark any crucial steps for integrating gender into the structures of public governance, especially in sectors where women’s contributions have been duly recognised, NEPAD’s stance does not necessarily question the status quo. The above statements say much about the authors’ take on access and inclusion in Africa, particularly in HE through the African initiative NEPAD.

Suggesting ways to address the crises of exclusion and inequality, Okeke and Onu (2006: 87-88) identify gender sensitivity in the policy-making process because it could facilitate the global struggle for poverty reduction to a level that meets, at least, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations Development Programme. They argue that African women’s lack of power is at the very centre of their inability to assert their claims of equal partnership with men in the development process, including in higher education. By ignoring this state of affairs,

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African countries continue to endorse not only women’s disempowerment, but also the massive waste of human resources on the altar of traditions and cultures that block women’s progress.

Thus, for Okeke (2004: 490), the continent cannot move forward without confronting the roots of cultures and traditions that justify the negative treatment that African women receive at the hands of men and the state. She laments women’s experiences in AHE, asking: ”How then could women participate as equal partners with men in nation building when they remain outside the forums of decision-making, struggling to put together the pieces of community life as the paths to social progress unwrap their challenges?”

In response, she calls for different mechanisms that could enable women to thrive just like men in HE in Africa. More importantly, she argues that expanding HE should not be divorced from the nature and scope of training that African women receive at the tertiary level, but ought to be at the centre (2004: 490-491). Her suggestion is that an African woman’s training should also provide a platform on which she could pose critical questions about those practices that oppress women, such as issues of cultural stagnation, and policies and traditions that burden the transformative agenda of women’s empowerment, including exclusion. This is a form of epistemological access that is absent in HE and that tends to perpetuate internal exclusion. It is evident that women, when encountering internal exclusion, lack the abilities and skills to interrogate the mounting ills confronting their life on a daily basis, hence my call to critically analyse HE discourses as a way to emancipate them from the various oppressions they experience. In addition, HE should equip African women with the ability to face the challenges of highly competitive and shrinking national labour markets.

However, my concern is how women acquire capabilities if they are internally excluded from policy making on and development of the curricula that should emancipate and unleash their potential? In this regard, Okeke (2004: 490) postulates that, for African women, HE should also question the conditions of their lives and the cultural elements that legitimate their subordinate status in society, including the practice of African Ubuntu, which disregard women and consign them to menial work.

In relation to her view, it is painful to note that, even though women are physically visible in HE, they are internally excluded, which makes it difficult for them to influence knowledge production, policy making and decision making on crucial democratic processes in HE. It goes without saying that African institutions with projects on women’s access, even in HE, cannot be trusted to engender substantive inclusion. Nawe (2004: 493) states that, in the post-independence period, HE played a dominant role in the public sector. Considering the thrust of HE, where everyone sought to acquire knowledge and skills to develop their nation, women’s participation, like that of men, became indispensable. The winds of change triggered different policy strategies for enhancing women's participation in HE. For this reason, different scholars have employed various strategies to advance women’s participation as a means to demand equity.

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Nevertheless, despite efforts to address the predicament, women’s access to and participation in HE (as consumers and providers) have remained gravely low, not only in Tanzania, but in Africa at large (Nawe, 2004: 493). Thus, the primary reasons that propel the enhancement of women’s participation can be associated with historical developments, socialisation processes, and the demands of the working environment; but, most importantly, the combination of female productive and reproductive roles that could lead to fair performances at all levels. Nawe identifies two major groups set up to address the anomaly, namely: (a) affirmative measures aimed at redressing the past imbalances related to history; and (b) advocacy to address problems in all the areas mentioned above. Her study examined published and unpublished material, as well as interviews and beneficial experience (irrespective of gender) regarding the set of strategies (e.g. affirmative action (AA)) put in place to enhance women's participation (Nawe, 2004: 494). Interestingly, a dominant concern is that women in Africa can be noticed in public engagements (seminars, workshops and others) where issues pertaining to HE are deliberated. However, only rarely are women able to make contributions at the same pace as other representatives. I agree with the preceding view that, though NEPAD has attempted to introduce profound initiatives, its foundations remain unstable as long as it refuses to consider equal spaces for both African women and men in its transformation project.

Okeke (2004: 491) mainly urges AHE to prepare women for full participation in the process of defining the content and nuances of Africa’s development and policy path in the twenty-first century. Although I echo Okeke’s analysis, the pertinent question is whether women’s lack of access and exclusion can be blamed solely on men and policies. Are there subtle ways in which women have contributed to their own exclusion? In my view, women should also be held accountable for their exclusion, especially those who made it to management and leadership positions, since nothing is said about their efforts to empower their fellow women. There are cases in which women who hold leadership positions deny other women the opportunity to climb the ladder. In some cases, women leaders allege that they usually feel unsafe having their fellow women as subordinates because of the latter’s negative attitudes towards their leadership. It appears then that, despite their call for inclusion, women are equally responsible for their own internal exclusion from HE in Africa. Unlike Kwesiga’s remarkable contribution to women’s projects in Uganda, other studies say little about how women in senior positions have advocated for projects that could advance substantive inclusion.

4.3.2.2 Women’s experiences of marginalisation in higher education

Unravelling women’s experiences of internal inclusion in AHE, Kwesiga (2002) and Okeke (2004) assert that female students and academics in African universities are often afraid to speak out to

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demand transformation. This inability is further compounded by the fact that many women academics at managerial levels lack strong networks to encourage mentorship and to create a unified voice. Where changes are happening which could galvanise the chances of women to take their position as partners with, rather than cheerleaders of, men in HE on the continent, they are slow to yield the desired outcomes for women in academia. Despite the crisis of women’s lack of access to HE, other social factors block their interest in HE and hinder their human rights within the public space of higher learning. In a case study done in Namibia, a country that had only one university at the time of the study, Katjavivi & Otaala (2004) observed that the HE institution appeared to be an unfriendly environment for women. Their study explored women’s experiences in HE, particularly at the university level and in relation to the scourge of HIV and AIDS in the country. Katjavivi & Otaala (2004) make reference to Kelly’s study, which challenges the ignorance of the impact of HIV and AIDS on HE in Africa (in this case Zambia). The authors argue that the epidemic posed a crisis, particularly because of women’s extreme vulnerability and marginalisation in universities in Africa (Katjavivi & Otaala, 2004: 580). In the case of Namibia, like many African countries, there is evidence of the increasing prevalence of HIV and AIDS, especially because girls and women fall victim to the virus through what they call “sugar-daddy” practices on the campus.

More so, Katjavivi & Otaala refer to Kelly’s report that “the entire university community – but in particular the university management – needs to face this threat squarely” (2004: 579). In the context of university life today, the institutional culture is in danger of affirming risk more than safety that is of HIV and AIDS.

Ironically, Katjavivi & Otaala caution that the “university in this case Namibia is in danger of affirming death more than life” (2004: 579-580). Given the above dilemma of sexual harassment and HIV and AIDS in HE, one can attest to the fact that HE can be perceived to be a dangerous environment for women, which invariably will hamper their participation and thriving, unlike their male counterparts. The point I am making is that, if women (as students and staff members of HE institutions) experience such hostility in public institutions, which are supposed to empower them, the possibility of affording them epistemological access is limited. Thus, the AHE environment, which is swamped by vicious discrimination, may not adequately cultivate women to develop intellectually and empower them to challenge the status quo. Katjavivi & Otaala (2004) assert that the university is often an inhospitable public space for women. Nonetheless, nothing is said about the possibility that women’s access to and participation in decision making could be enhanced, considering the predicament of HIV and AIDS, sexual harassment and so forth − which seem to hinder their progress in subtle ways.

Although the researchers were more interested in the effects of HIV and AIDS in HE, I cannot see how women’s experiences in such an institution can be divorced from their participation and inclusion. My contention is that issues of vulnerability and exclusion are interrelated, and that only

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when the attitude to women’s contribution to deliberations in HE is transformed will such a predicament be mitigated. In my view, the above data paints a dismal picture of how women are explicitly and implicitly excluded from the university through under-representation, since the few women representatives only have had access to lower-level positions, where they cannot really influence decision-making processes and knowledge production.

This picture of selected experiences of women buttresses my claim for internal exclusion in AHE. I have noted that it is not surprising that women’s experiences indicate a lack of access and inclusion, considering the numerous social hostilities that they face in HE institutions, such as sexual harassment and other vulnerabilities that eventually could lead to their exclusion, even at other levels of society. Thus far, I have shown how Okeke (2004), Nawe (2004) and other contributors have expanded the call for women’s inclusion beyond their physical representation in AHE. These authors have defended an education that prepares women to engage as partners with

This picture of selected experiences of women buttresses my claim for internal exclusion in AHE. I have noted that it is not surprising that women’s experiences indicate a lack of access and inclusion, considering the numerous social hostilities that they face in HE institutions, such as sexual harassment and other vulnerabilities that eventually could lead to their exclusion, even at other levels of society. Thus far, I have shown how Okeke (2004), Nawe (2004) and other contributors have expanded the call for women’s inclusion beyond their physical representation in AHE. These authors have defended an education that prepares women to engage as partners with