DVC CALLS FOR WOMEN RESEACHERS TO REDEFINE AFRICA’S KNOWLEDGE FUTURE

iYunivesithi Walter Sisulu Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Professor, Margaret Linington, has challenged female researchers to move beyond simply participating in academia and help reshape knowledge systems that will determine Africa’s future.

Linington was delivering a message on behalf of Walter Sisulu Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor, Thandi Mgwebi, at the EWIRA-FIRE Conference, where she also reflected on the changing demands facing higher education and the need for universities to prepare graduates for an increasingly complex world.

“We need system thinkers, and to be a system thinker, you have to think critically first. But in a complex world, people who see the whole picture are really the vital people, and those are the people that will change," she said. 

She said critical thinking has become even more important as technology, particularly artificial intelligence, continues to develop at a rapid pace, requiring universities to think differently about what students need for the future.

Returning to the formal message she was delivering on behalf of Prof Mgwebi, she said the conference was about much more than celebrating women already involved in research.

“It's about who produces knowledge, whose knowledge counts, what questions we ask, and how that knowledge changes society,” she said.

The message comes as the university prepares to launch its Vision 2040+, which places gender equity, inclusion, justice and the removal of structural barriers to opportunity and success among its priorities.

Linington challenged the university community to move beyond asking how many women participate in research and instead ask how many women lead research, shape research agendas, hold research chairs, influence policy and practice, and create the next generation of women scholars.

She questioned the continued argument that institutions cannot find qualified women for academic and research positions.

“If you can't find women, then you have to ask, what have you been doing to create them in that position that you can appoint them?” she questioned.

She highlighted Vision 2040’s three signature themes, food futures, One Health, and justice, governance and leadership futures as important platforms for research addressing challenges facing the Eastern Cape, South Africa and Africa.

She said women have a significant role across these areas, including agriculture, rural economies, food and nutritional security, health, climate resilience, indigenous knowledge, governance and leadership. However, she stressed that women should not engage in research simply because they are women.

“Diversity brings new ways of looking at things. We don't engage in research as women because we're women. We engage because we bring something extra to the table,” she said.

Concluding the message on behalf of Prof Mgwebi, Linington challenged women researchers not to settle for a place within existing academic structures, but to help transform them.

By: Yolanda Palezweni