Misrepresentation of research on academic promotions at the University of Cape Town

Abstract

In this response, we address the misrepresentation of our article by Rene W Albertus on higher education decolonisation processes in South Africa. We respond to her claim, based on a misreading of our article, that at the University of Cape Town white academic staff are promoted faster than black staff and restate the major findings of our quantitative analysis of 11 years of promotion data. We used time to promotion as a proxy for fairness to examine patterns of promotion at the university. In general, there was evenness across various categories with few systemic differences; there were no consistent differences between times to promotion by gender or for those categorising themselves as “Africans”, “Whites”, “Coloureds” and “Indians”. However, international staff, those in more junior positions, with higher qualifications and in certain faculties enjoyed quicker promotion time. We discuss the possible explanations for the findings reported, and the role of affirmative action recruitment policies to ensure redress.

Keywords

• higher education
• decolonization
• equity
• transformation
• gender
• ethnicity