Minister highlights gap between women's enrolment success and leadership representation
South Africa's Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela has urged African nations to look beyond student numbers and confront the deep-rooted structural barriers that continue to hold women back in higher education. Speaking at the 3rd Edition of the Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday, he argued that getting more women through the doors of universities counts for little if they remain locked out of positions of power and influence.
Manamela delivered the keynote address at the two-day gathering, which brought together higher education leaders, policymakers and sector stakeholders under the theme "Powering Africa's future through talent development, innovation and inclusion". Discussions centred on global challenges, innovation and entrepreneurship, start-up ecosystems, work readiness and skills development, as well as equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education.
"There is no neutral education system. Paulo Freire reminded us that there is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either reproduces the world as it is or helps us transform it. When we speak about equity, diversity, inclusion, and gender equality in African higher education, we should be clear that we are not discussing a side issue, or a matter of institutional image. We are discussing who gets access to knowledge, who succeeds, who leads, who is left behind, and what kind of society our universities help to build."
The Minister pointed to South Africa's own experience as both a success story and a cautionary tale. Women now form the clear majority in the country's university system, comprising 62.7% of enrolments and 65.4% of graduates in 2023. Yet he cautioned that celebrating those figures alone would be telling "the wrong story" about the state of gender equality on campuses.
Women dominate classrooms but remain scarce in senior academic ranks
Despite their overwhelming presence among students and graduates, women occupy only about a third of professorial positions at South African universities, Manamela noted. The figures are stark: just 1 129 female professors compared to 2 216 men. He described this as a fundamental "contradiction" within the system, where women's dominance in enrolment and graduation has not carried through to authority and institutional leadership.
"Women are not only entering higher education in larger numbers; they are also graduating in larger numbers. These reflects long struggles for access, democracy and redistribution. It reflects public policy, public investment, and social change far beyond the education sector itself. It [also] tells us that what happens in higher education is not merely the achievement of universities. It is also a reflection of wider shifts in households, communities, aspirations, social movements and the democratic order. But that is only one side of the story. Because if we stop there, we tell the wrong story."
Manamela stressed that genuine progress in equity, diversity and inclusion must be tracked across the entire academic pipeline — from initial access and progression through to employment, leadership roles and institutional power. Without that broader lens, he warned, surface-level statistics risk masking persistent inequality.
The Minister also drew attention to similar patterns in Technical and Vocational Education and Training, where women make up the bulk of overall enrolments but remain poorly represented in certain skills programmes that have traditionally been male-dominated. He attributed this imbalance to wider societal patterns that continue to channel opportunities along gender lines. In the same vein, he noted that while women are increasingly entering Science, Engineering and Technology fields in South Africa, their growing participation has not automatically led to equal outcomes in career advancement, research leadership or earnings.
South Africa's university gender gap between enrolment and leadership has significant implications for the country's workforce pipeline and economic competitiveness. If women continue graduating in large numbers but remain underrepresented in senior academic and research positions, the nation risks losing critical intellectual capital and innovation potential. Addressing structural barriers in academia could strengthen institutional governance, improve research output and create more equitable career pathways across sectors, particularly in science, engineering and vocational training fields.
