The Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Lagos State University on Wednesday, 13th December 2023 held the first phase of the AURORA project workshop at the Seminar Room, Central Language Laboratory, Faculty of Arts, main campus, Ojo, Lagos.
The theme of the workshop was “Addressing Women’s Underrepresentation in Higher Education Leadership in Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom”.
The Dean of, the Faculty of Arts, Prof. Taiwo M. Salisu, who was ably represented by Prof. Ahmed Adesanya, in his remarks noted that the issue of gender is a popular discussion across the world and discussing it, especially in terms of leadership in higher education is very important. He congratulated the Convener, Dr. Henry Hunjo and wished the participants a fruitful deliberation.
Prof. Omolola A. Ladele was the first facilitator at the workshop and she spoke on “The Current State of Women in Higher Education Leadership in Nigeria”.
She stated that the culture and education of any country determine its developmental rate and discriminatory socio-cultural practices such as gender stereotypes against women led to gender disparity in education.
While speaking about the “Female Advantage”, Prof. Ladele noted that many Universities include women merely because of their gender and not because of their academic qualifications.
She averred that this will pose a lot of problems for the women to rise in their profession because there is no corresponding academic attitude to back them up. Prof.
Ladele, therefore, advocated that women should first, be academically qualified and encouraged them to redefine and reinvent themselves to get into leadership positions.
The second facilitator at the workshop was Prof. Abolaji S. Mustapha, whose topic was “The Importance of Networking and Mentorship for Career Advancement of Women Leadership Position in Higher Education in Nigeria”.
He averred that there is a gap between men and women in leadership positions and noted that mentoring and networking are ways that can be used to bridge the gap.
Prof. Mustapha stated the purpose of mentoring and advised established individuals/leaders to take on young professionals as mentees to train them for leadership positions.
He added that this will help strengthen the workforce, maintain the selling points of the system, and ease the leadership selection process amongst other things.
According to him, “Together each person will achieve much, you alone will get very little but if you team up with people in your area of discipline, you will achieve much, that is networking”.
Prof. Abolaji stated the importance of networking to include; increased visibility among the crowd of other talented professionals, opening doors to new opportunities, gaining more knowledge, skills and experience etc.
After the presentations, the Convener and Co-Principal Investigator, AURORA project, in Nigeria, Dr. Henry Hunjo, gave a brief report on the preliminary findings of the project in the country.
The AURORA project is supported by a Gender Equality Partnerships grant from the British Council.
The Gender Equality Partnerships grants support to higher and further education institutions and sector bodies to progress gender equality, building on the potential of the sector to influence wider society.
The workshop had in attendance the Head of, the Department of English, Prof. Pius Akhimien, Head of, the Department of Linguistics, African Languages and Communication Arts, Dr. (Mrs.) Titilayo Onadipe-Shalom, Prof. Gabriel Osoba, other senior staff of the University and participants.
The second phase of the workshop is expected to come up today, Wednesday, 20th December 2023.
