Encourage more women into leadership roles, northern education chiefs urges the Government

The UK charity WomenCount, an initiative focused on women’s participation in higher education, the third sector and public bodies, said appointments of women to senior university roles ‘falls short’ and action needs to be taken on dismantling the professorial roadblock to women moving up the career ladder.

In the organisation’s Leaders in Higher Education 2019 report it showed women are just 29 per cent of all vice-chancellors, 37 per cent of all executive team members and 31 per cent of heads in the top tier of the academic structure.

Professor Shirley Congdon, the first female vice-chancellor for the University of Bradford and leading voice for universities for the Leeds City Region’s Local Enterprise Partnership, said more support needed to be provided to aid more women into senior roles to help improve diversity and inclusion across the higher education sector.

Professor Congdon, 59, said: “Definitely more support needs to be given.

“It does feel sometimes that people can go “wow really a woman has got to that position”, and it shouldn’t be a big deal because we are quite capable and confident.”

Reflecting on her appointment last summer as the first female to take the leader role at the university since it was founded in 1966 she said: “I don’t feel I have achieved something exceptional, but when you look at the numbers of women in senior positions clearly I am in the minority.”

Becoming a professor is usually a prerequisite to becoming a Vice-Chancellor, a Pro Vice-Chancellor or a Dean but, according to Leaders in Higher Education 2019 report women are less than 25 per cent of all professors.

Dr Peter O’Brien, the executive director of the charity Yorkshire Universities, which represents 12 institutes across the region, said that Yorkshire is at the forefront of leading the way for advocating female equality in the sector with five female vice-chancellors currently in post.

However he stressed more needs to be done to tackle the gender inequalities in higher education, and ‘level-up’ the disproportionate number of women currently in leadership roles.

Dr O’Brien said: “It is a big gap to a degree... Across the country is it clearly important to see more women in those leadership positions.

“I think Yorkshire in some respects is doing well but we can do better of course."

He added: “There is much more we could do to encourage greater diversity and particularly around more women to enter higher education.

“It’s the career progression beyond that - there are fantastic female leaders of our universities in Yorkshire… they will be mindful of some of the barriers that they may have faced and what barriers they need to remove in their own institutions.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “While there has been some improvement in the number of women in leadership positions in higher education, there is clearly much more to be done to ensure universities are representative of the students and communities they serve.

“Vice-chancellors need to address the barriers that are holding back female staff from senior positions and ensure that career opportunities, including promotion and progression, are available to all."

The Department of Education also confirmed that universities are independent institutions responsible for the contracts and conditions of employment they offer to their staff. We expect universities to follow fair employment practices, including under the Equality Act 2010 to ensure all staff, regardless of gender, have the opportunity to progress in their careers.”

Universities UK, the representative organisation for the UK's universities, was also approached by The Yorkshire Post for comment.

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