Academic Staff in Engineering and the Built Environment at Durban University of Technology: A Baseline Study of Gender Equality

Abstract

Abstract The research reported in this paper is part of a large Personalised Engineering Education South Africa III Project that involves eight universities across Europe and South Africa. One of the foci of the project is around gender equality in engineering education. The literature on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (STEM) in general is briefly reviewed. Attention then shifts to gender equality in STEM, academia, and engineering education more specifically. Management Information data from 2014 to 2018 were analysed to establish a baseline for the number and the rank of female staff in seven academic departments in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (EBE) at Durban University of Technology (DUT). The results show that there is low representation of female staff in the selected academic departments. Female staff are not represented in the higher academic ranks such as Associate or Full Professors. These findings resonate with other published research. This baseline study will be used to further investigate the experiences of women in EBE at DUT.