SN 2 EP 5: The Journey of Gender Mainstreaming in Higher Education with Prof. Flora Fabian-Mbatia

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

gender mainstreaming, support, research, women, institution, academic, university, gender, mentoring, academia, project, program, researchers, toolkit, workshop, vice chancellor, awareness, influenced, teaching

EPISODE SUMMARY

INTRO:

Welcome to Mazungumzo, African scholarly conversations, a podcast that highlights the perspectives of various stakeholders in academia, or research fields across Africa through open dialogue or Muslims on scholarly communication in Africa.

Joy Owango:

Happy New Year everybody, it’s 2024 and welcome to Mazungumzo African scholarly conversations, where we are joined by an expansive list of African policymakers, science communication specialists, innovators, and tertiary institutional beads who contribute to this realm of science communication and scholarly communication. I’m your host Joy Owango, the Executive Director of Training Center and communication -TCC Africa a capacity building trust based at the University of Nairobi Chiromo campus in Nairobi, Kenya.

Joining us today is a distinguished academic whose commitment to education and gender mainstreaming has left an indelible mark on the academic landscape in Tanzania and Africa. Professor Flora Fabian is the founding Vice Chancellor of Mwanza University in Tanzania, and a professor in anatomy and biomedical sciences. She has previously held positions at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences and the University of Dodoma. She has a special interest in gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive pedagogy. On this note, Prof. Fabian has collaborated closely with INASP on initiatives such as the Strengthening Research and Knowledge Systems (SRKS) and Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) projects. In these projects, conducted during her leadership at Dodoma, she played a key role in delivering gender mainstreaming and training of trainer workshops. As a result, she is a co-author of the INASP Gender Mainstreaming in Higher Education Toolkit.

Welcome Professor Fabian. Karibu Sana.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Asante sana Joy and thank you very much for having me in this program, and Happy New Year.

Joy Owango:

Happy New Year to you. You’ve been you’ve had quite a diverse portfolio in academia and leadership. Could you share a bit about your academic journey and experiences that have shaped your passion for education and gender mainstreaming, in academia, and most importantly, how it influenced your position as a vice chancellor at Mwanza University?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Thank you Joy, I must say, Well, before I go to my academic journey, it all started during my formative years, really, with my own father, who was very proud of me. Considering those times, girls were considered an insignificant group in society, and fathers would like to take the boys to school. But my father was a bit different, he encouraged me, and he was proud of me even telling the neighbors that his little girl was brilliant, and was gonna go far in education. This, I think, gave me confidence in a society, where girls were not considered an important group in the society. Going to my academic journey, it all started as an undergraduate student at Muhimbili College then of the University of Dar es Salaam, and what inspired me was the fact that in higher learning institutions, teaching is evidence based, and of course research was an interesting component for me. When we were doing the undergraduate elective study research, I was really kind of inspired by my supervisor, although it was not a woman, and I believe that there will be fairness, equity and equality in the higher education community.

Then I completed my undergraduate, went to internship, and you know, during the internship, normally you go through departments, and at one point I went to the  (…emergency) department. And there I felt so frustrated, that I thought, instead of, working in a very frustrating environment all the time, I could go to academics, teach and of course, support in producing more doctors who are going to support people and are going to be, of course, innovative, and hopefully solve the issues of technology then. Right. I hope. I hope you can relate with that.

Joy Owango:

Yes, yes.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

I therefore, applied to be a tutorial assistant in the department of anatomy, which is one of the courses I really loved, especially embryology, which I teach to date, of course, I also teach other programs in anatomy. But this one really intrigued me because you see how a human develops, right prior to fertilization, and then you can explain a lot of these anomalies that babies may be born with. We see anomalies on the street. And I thought this is quite interesting so this really pushed me into joining this department. Training then, in our setting, there wasn’t enough technology to conduct the advanced research. And also getting scholarships for biomedical sciences were quite hard. Fortunately, one of those days that I just went to the Ministry of Health, trying to find out how can one get scholarships and this is how I was introduced to the Japanese Embassy. I was told that if you go to the Japanese Embassy, you could apply for the scholarships. I applied and was fortunate that out of the 30 applicants, I was one of the three who were successful, I went to Tokyo, and that’s where I did my PhD. I must say, then that is how my academic journey started. But progression into my academic journey wasn’t as straightforward. You know, it was really, I wouldn’t say it’s an easy journey. During that time, the institutional systems were quite masculine. There were there was no awareness on any career mentorship. There was minimal awareness of gender. And to say the least, there was open discrimination and lack of empathy to women. Remember, the time that we are going to post graduate is also the same time that we are getting married, and having children. So I think it was quite hard. And I must say, somehow, this hardened me. I could be very emotional and go into the sanctuary of my room, or my privacy in the office crying or

Joy Owango:

Oh no.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

But then I promised myself that I would make sure to support and mentor early career women specifically, as much as I could do, because I could see how I fought through. And there was minimal support. So, I would say mostly, my journey has been from my own motivation, and the inspiration to grow as an academic who can teach well, but most importantly, who can be a role model to the young women who want to excel in academia.

Joy Owango:

So now, I’m just listening to you, and I understand what you’re going through, because it’s what most women go through in academia, you know, there is balancing of family, with your career, and it can be a bit of a nightmare. And also, sometimes at that point, there was really no gender mainstreaming within our universities. Right now, it is better. I mean, we could do better, but it is definitely better than before. And it is really those challenges you faced in your career to the point that even became a vice chancellor that got you really interested in gender mainstreaming, which also led to the development of the INASP gender mainstreaming in higher education toolkit. So could you elaborate on the significance of gender mainstreaming in higher education and share specific practical strategies and tools, from the toolkit that academic institutions can implement to promote gender equity and inclusivity, you can also share with us despite the experiences that you went through, and how this toolkit could actually could have helped, if it existed them, and how it would actually support researchers today.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Thank you, Joy. First of all, let me say a few words about INASO, INASP is an international organization based in the UK, but it has been working with universities and researchers in global south for more than 30 years, mainly on strengthening research, teaching and knowledge production and supporting the knowledge ecosystem. So, for me, I started interacting with INASP, when I was at the University of the Dodoma and previously, when I was at Muhimbili University of Health & Allied Sciences, I had participated, more than 20 years back, in a training of trainers in gender mainstreaming, there will be a program that was supported by the Carnege organization of Canada and that is how I was actually introduced to gender. And I’m glad that this program, which was organized by the University of Dar es Salam, was one of the initiatives that put in place the agenda unit at that university, then. However, it has remained quite academic and also, each higher education institution will progress differently at a different pace. But still, there is notable gaps in academia specifically, of course, we know in STEM programs, this is a known fact. We noted that this could have arisen from the lack of a standard tool for gender streaming, which could be adopted by various universities, and specifically, new public institutions and private institutions. Most private in institutions may not have gender units, may not have gender policies, or frameworks. This was the main driver for us to really think about developing this tool. Specifically, when I was at the University of Dodoma, there was a glaring gender gap in the institution. And, for example, out of the 694, academics then at that particular time, only 175 were women. You can see, it’s only maybe a quarter of the total academics were women, and most of them were in the lower academic ranks. And of course, it goes without saying there was no woman in the top management, of course, currently, we may have a few women.

Joy Owango:

Yes, that’s true. Yeah. Especially the Deputy Vice Chancellors (DVC’s)

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Yes, we have some, but then there was none at that particular time and we also looked at the middle-level managers, we had like 25 middle-level managers, and out of them only 5 were women. It goes without saying that without a suitable academic rank, you cannot become a higher-learning institution manager.

Joy Owango:

Definitely. That is true.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

So, yes, but despite all these gaps, it’s like business as usual. And this is how I consulted some of my colleagues who were at the middle level manager like myself on how we could raise awareness on agenda and hopefully, start gender mainstreaming and therefore, this is how we planned our first workshop and we called this workshop getting out of the box. So, getting out of the box workshop, there was support from INASP because we had started working with INASP on research writing through the Author Aid program, and therefore, this is how we took off into considering gender mainstreaming.

So, we applied and we were able to get funding for the first workshop, and from that workshop, we developed our work plan; what were we going to do out of that workshop and really, this is how we developed the toolkit. So, for the toolkit on gender mainstreaming, we take into consideration that gender mainstreaming is actually a strategy and what will be the outcome then is institutional which is agenda sensitive institution as an outcome and therefore we have an institution that is more gender sensitive, gender-aware, and therefore have gender equity and equality in the institution. So, the toolkit itself has the tools that will help any institution at a higher learning institution or a research institution to be able to conduct workshops and support gender mainstreaming. And how does it work? Normally we introduce the process itself, which if I may say is like four stages, you start with defining the issues and within defining the issues, the tools that support defining the issues are by conducting qualitative or quantitative sex-disaggregated data, which will give us the gaps, we can identify the gaps and when we have these gaps, now, we also know, Who are we going to bring on board and actually going in-depth, so we also identify stakeholders and in our case, we  consider top management, middle management staff and students. After that stage, we have the tools that support the planning. What did we mean by planning? In this case, we have to look at our resources. So, what resources are in place in terms of finance, in terms of those who are going to implement and implementation, in this case, it would involve training, will involve doing some more studies so, that we can implement better. Therefore, it guides on the budgeting, it guides on how we are going to allocate our resources and then we go to the implementation, and with the implementation, the tool gives stage by stage on conducting either one day workshop or continuous workshops in gender raising gender awareness. And we start from maybe small groups, and then we make sure now, the institution is gender aware and the staff becomes gender-sensitive, and gender responsive. As such, we are able now to prepare tools for gender mainstreaming that means, including revision of the frameworks that we have a revision of policies and in case an institution does not have a gender policy, then involve the institution in preparing a gender policy, and this will also include at the end, to evaluate and recommend, but importantly Joy, I think, without involving top management, especially, where you have the role of top management as only men.

Joy Owango:

yeah, that becomes a bit of an issue.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Yes, it is an issue. So, you need lobbying to have the buy-in, so, with that, then you know, you can revisit it, you can replan, then you can retrain. Yeah. Now, you can have a system in place that allows a transformed institution.

Joy Owango:

So with that, what have been the key lessons that you’ve learned, because you’re getting into an ecosystem where before, there were no women in leadership, and you want more women in leadership, you’re training more women to be in leadership, especially in the universities, but also engendering the entire higher education ecosystem, where traditionally it has been male-dominated. What have been your key lessons in this entire process?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

I must say. First of all, it has been a very fulfilling journey. As I mentioned earlier, initially, we need a lot of lobbying with top management.

Joy Owango:

And there was no push back at that point?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Some pushback I expected, Joy. But the good thing is, that this process has to be evidence-based. Therefore, having rapid surveys locally, and also, having literature from global data is very important. Through this evidence-based, then we build our case and therefore buy-in can be easier.

Another thing I’d like to mention is when we are working with gender mainstreaming, transformations, and so forth, we as individuals undergo our own transformations. And this with individual transformation gives us the strength specifically to have transformation at the institutional level. Once we have transformation at the institutional level, then the gender gap is reduced. For example, I may give an example following our process of gender mainstreaming; preparation of the gender policy there has been a big transformation, specifically in research and publication. Well, I must say, I was lucky because I was the director then for research and publication. But, and yes, and I was lucky that we had the INASP support, where we continued to train women, and there was a rapid increase, in the volume of publication from women.

Joy Owango:

Publication from women as first authors?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Yes, yes, as first authors, and some second, third, or, co-authors. But this changed because from the first year, to the following year, already women came up with publications and especially those who were doing their PhD, they were able to produce publications from their dissertations and theses. So as such, and some of them because of the raise in their awareness, they became more aware, on balancing the time between academic responsibilities and home chores. Women started prioritizing their academic activities, and even to the point of engaging helpers, to support with the home chores. We were able to balance more and people were happy that they could produce publication. So, I think for me, the lessons were great once we do the lobbying, once we raise the awareness and once, we target not only the management, but the women themselves, being aware that we can actually make it. So, there has been a very positive change among women, and even in promotions.

Joy Owango:

Yes. And it also instills confidence in them. It leads to inspiration for the early career researchers, especially the early career women researchers. When you see a vice-chancellor who is a woman or Deputy Vice Chancellor who is a woman, you know, there is something beyond just working on your research, you can also aim for those higher positions, especially when you’re seeing them as part authors, and they also receiving grants. So that is quite an achievement. Now, your collaboration with INASP has been extensive, notably in projects like the Strengthening Research and Knowledge Systems (SRKS) program and the Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) project. Could you provide a brief overview of these projects and highlight key aspects of your involvement? Also what impacts have these initiatives had on research and knowledge systems in the regions they targeted?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Thank you Joy. Let me start with the strengthening research. As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate that I was the director of research and publications, consultants, and then of course, international collaboration. Yeah. And this allowed me to work very closely with INASP.  During that time, I became part of the INASP author aid program, facilitating online research writing.  This allowed us to develop proposals, some supported by INASP locally like conducting research writing workshops for the early career researchers. And this really supported the early career researchers in developing fundable research proposals, producing manuscripts from their dissertations. But more importantly, I was able to encourage early career researchers in my institution to join the online author ad program, which was a really big support. It was during this time that my collaboration with INASP grew and we then continued to work together in gender issues, framing the toolkit, as we have discussed earlier, but gender mainstreaming activities grew. And it became possible to be sustained by the university itself. Yeah. So therefore, budgets were involved. I mean during the budgeting, we could put in place activities that are related, not only to research but also to gender mainstreaming and through the implementation of the strengthening knowledge and research ecosystem and the gender activities coincides with the announcement of the sphere program in 2017. INASP wanted to find out if I was interested in teaming up and if I could form a team that will work together and bring other institutions on board to develop the proposal for the TESCEA project. As you might be aware the TESCEA project was implemented in a 5 universities. Yes. And of course, it was mainly on teaching pedagogy, but also gender mainstreaming pedagogy where specific needs of both men and women learners are considered. So, lecturers were trained and students were trained and adapted the transformative learning program or teaching style. And really, this program not only changed or improved our teaching style, but also this is when we developed a group of champions or training of trainers to train others across the institution in the implementing institutions, but also outside the implementing institutions. For example, we had an opportunity to introduce gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive pedagogy in another sphere project known as PEBL West Africa. And therefore, we worked with INASP and to train the trainers who will we be mentoring that program? And I must say, really, this two projects; TESCEA project and the strengthening research and knowledge ecosystem have improved greatly the volume of publications amongst the implementers of these projects, but also, through webinars, through workshops, it has been impactful within and outside the region.

Joy Owango:

Yes. Yes. Fantastic. And you know, when you have more researchers improving not only their pedagogics skills, but also improving their research systems, it means that at the end of the day, they improve their research output, improve their research visibility, and I believe it strongly connected into the gender mainstreaming because you’re also encouraging more women to be part of this programs and to be recipients of this programs, such that their work can be seen. And they can also aspire to get into these leadership positions that the gender mainstreaming toolkit was designed to do, but also making leadership within higher education institutions a bit more discerning about the various factors that hinder women researchers from achieving their goals as leaders within the ecosystem. So, this is quite good. And with all said and done when you’re going through this bitter scare project and the SRK s project, am I right to assume that you have also included aspects of the gender mainstreaming, to just make sure that this is aligned with the conversations that you are having with the various researchers and partners? Do you do feel? Or did you observe that you had more women involved in that project? Because at the end of the day, when you’re looking at improving research output, it’s also encouraging more women to be part of this process so that their work can be seen, and they can also improve their research lifecycle. So, did you see an increase in women getting involved? Did you also include gender mainstreaming activities in these two major projects?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Sure, Joy. Actually, one of the reasons why it was funded was the gender mainstreaming and the gender-responsive pedagogic components which was a big attraction to the sphere program our teams had 50 or 50 the women were slightly more than the men. It was very intentional right from the beginning. And this is It’s how we even got to support the PEBL West Africa Project, which was also a project under sphere. I must say it was a big success when considering gender mainstreaming and gender responsive pedagogy.

Joy Owango:

So with all this there are elements of mentoring researchers, particularly early career researchers. What are your reflections on your commitment to the development of others? And what personal fulfillment do you find in mentoring, not only early career researchers in improving their research lifecycle, but also influencing change by gender mainstreaming within higher education and how has this entire process influenced your growth as an academic leader?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Oh, yes, thank you Joy. As I mentioned earlier, of course, my experiences motivated me to start and I had promised myself, I was going to be mentoring others. And not only others, specifically early-career women. This is the big question for me. To see young women excel and become top managers in higher education. However, through mentoring we grow as we find strength. We find strength that we can tap from those who were mentoring. This is a big inspiration. For example. I was not very good at qualitative research but I was mentoring, and supervising a PhD student who was a woman. She was really good at qualitative research. And this is how I learned how to do qualitative research.

But of course, as a mentor, we publish together. I’m not going to be the first author. But definitely, my research volume will grow and this is a big motivation to really mentor others and work together.

Joy Owango:

Beyond academia, what are your personal aspirations or dreams?

Prof. Flora Fabian:

I’d say the academia outside and the inside the academy.

Joy Owango:

Okay, let’s do that.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Definitely, I would say, I felt like staying away for all those years, I kind of lost some good contacts, some deep connection with my children but I appreciate that they do understand and they do support me. I was definitely able to support them through. When you stay away, you may not be able to express emotions and have those deep emotional connections. But I’m glad post training, I have been able to connect deeply with my children and hopefully with my grandchildren. I really appreciate my children, and husband for being understanding and supporting me in this busy management and teaching activities because although I’m a Vice Chancellor, I am a teacher full time, so I don’t want to be a vice chancellor who sits in the office.

Joy Owango:

You’re a teacher, researcher and administrator.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

So, I really love connecting with the students and mentoring them. And, specifically, because my institution is a gender-equitable institution. Right from the beginning, we started training the staff training the students, and therefore, awareness is high. My inspiration is to have a gender-equitable community, both within and outside the institution.

Joy Owango:

Thank you so much. This has been very interesting, very inspiring. And it’s truly an honor to have you and we are so happy about the change you’re influencing not only in university but in the Tanzanian academic community, especially when it comes to gender mainstreaming in the higher education sector. And hopefully, this will spread beyond the country and be adopted by most institutions within the continent. Asante sana, thank you so much for your time.

Prof. Flora Fabian:

I would like to end by thanking INASP not only for the initial support, but for  inviting me as an INASP associate, working together in various activities, and most importantly, in mentoring of early career researchers.

Joy Owango:

Yeah, they’ve been instrumental in that for sure. Sure. Okay. Then thank you and do thank

Prof. Flora Fabian:

Thank you very much Joy and stay well.

Joy Owango:

Thank you and enjoy the rest of the year. Bye.

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