Unisa to promote racism awareness in training and policies

The University of South Africa is to develop its training and development programmes to incorporate training in racism awareness, as well as adopt an Anti Racism and Racist Harassment Policy.

Unisa's Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Barney Pityana, announced this to Senate at its meeting last week, and in a statement on racism released today (see attachment).

The University will also embark on a recruitment programme to ensure its staff profile makes appropriate progress in matching the country's economically active population profile.

"At this time when the Programme and Qualifications Mix of the university as well as the design of a new curriculum are under review, the university will seek to develop a race and culture sensitive approach to curriculum.

"The renewal of Unisa must and will be built on a fully representative body of staff, academic and non-academic, at all levels. The Employment Equity Plan to be presented to Council in April will seek to alter the race, gender and disability demographics of Unisa staff and, more fundamentally, to transform the institutional culture into a genuinely inclusive one. By creating a sense of belonging everyone is bound to prosper and the university will earn its reputation as an African university of excellence," he said.

A recent report compiled by Unisa's Department of Information and Statistical Analysis showed that white staff dominated the senior ranks. White staff in senior positions also fell in the older categories while younger staff were mainly African. This implied that the University should focus on mentoring and training the younger African staff to fill senior posts as and when older white staff retired. Women academics were also under represented in the ranks of full professors.

In 2007, Unisa's total staff complement stood at 9 711. This comprised 4 046 permanent staff and 5 665 temporary staff. The number of temporary staff, including tutors and non-professional administrative staff, varies annually. The more than 1 000 permanent vacancies should be the focus of a recruitment drive to address the inequities in the staff profile.

The overall composition of the total and permanent staff complements by race was highly unequal in relation to both the economically active and the total South African populations.

While Africans constituted 79,6% of the population and 74,5 percent of the economically active population, they constituted 42,2% of total staff and 39,4% of permanent staff at Unisa. They were thus severely under-represented in relation to both of these external reference points.

Conversely, while whites represented 9,1% of the overall population and 12,2% of the economically active population, they formed 50,2% of total staff and 53,0% of permanent staff. They were thus considerably over-represented in relation to both external reference points.

Staff profile by gender

In aggregate terms, women were over-represented in the total staff complement (where they are 58,4% of the total) and in the permanent staff complement (54,5%) relative to their proportion of the economically active population (46,0%) and the population as a whole (50,8%).

This aggregated over-representation hides the areas of the institutional occupational structure in which women were under-represented, namely senior management.

Women formed a proportionately higher component of temporary staff which is of concern from the employment equity perspective.

Staff profile by age

The staff complement at Unisa is clearly ageing in time, with increases evident in the above 55 age group over the last four years.

White staff is overwhelmingly clustered in the older age groups, and Africans in the younger ones.

The detailed analysis identifies a large number of white and male staff who are at, or approaching retirement age. This applies to the key categories of Executive/Management and Instructional/Research staff. The vacancies created by these imminent retirements should be targeted in future recruitment.

Statement issued by the University of South Africa April 2 2008