Stephen Vasciannie
EARLIER THIS year, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, jumped unwisely into a pot of hot, if not boiling, water. He noted that women were under-represented in the fields of science and engineering, and raised the question whether this situation reflected "intrinsic aptitude" of women (the quotation marks are borrowed from a recent New York Times report).
For this remark, Summers has been widely criticized at Harvard and well beyond the confines of Cambridge, Mass. The argument, of course, is that Summers' comment amounts to a suggestion that women are inherently inferior to men in the realms of scientific inquiry. Given the easily documented evidence of discrimination against women not only in science but in other areas of the academy, Summers opened himself to the charge of being hostile to women.
Now, largely in response to the storm of criticism prompted by his comment, Summers has encouraged efforts to improve diversity at Harvard. In mid-May, the University announced that it would spend US$50 million over the next ten years expressly to support women and other under-represented minority groups on the Harvard faculty. Something good could possibly emerge from the president's gaffe.
GENDER RELATIONS
The Harvard episode, however, raises issues about gender relations at the tertiary level. Many universities in the Western world continue to be subject to male dominance even though women now generally outperform men in many areas of academic study. For some, this situation reflects a time lag, meaning that, with the passage of time, the high-performing women will have the opportunity to rise to the top on the basis of merit.
This is probably true in some contexts, but certainly not in all. In some places, many people both men and women can point to instances in which men still land the top jobs essentially because they are men. And, because this is known to happen, the sharp responses to Summers, are entirely understandable.
Within the Academy, and in other areas of life, the question of child-bearing poses particular challenges for women. If the mother opts to stay at home for some time to give the child a sound foundation, she is regarded as having withdrawn from the workforce.
This may have implications for the mother's upward mobility; for, when she comes to be compared with others who have not withdrawn from the workforce, she will be placed at a disadvantage.
In most Western societies, this dilemma is not faced by men. It is curious, though: we all agree that motherhood is wonderful, but many societies are ambivalent about the way motherhood is to be treated as a career issue.
And this, of course, is a mild characterisation of the problem. We all know, or know of, women who have been fired by their employers upon revealing that they are with child.
TEACHER P
On another educational matter, a student from the University of Technology called Mutty Perkins last Wednesday to complain about an examination in Cost Accounting. The essence of the complaint was that students in this examination had been given a compulsory question, marked out of 40 percent, but that for the overall course the lecturer had only spent 15 minutes in class covering the subject matter tested in the compulsory question.
Perkins entertained the complaint, but, quite correctly, did not agree with the complainant. Here is the point that the student stoutly refused to see. At the tertiary level, the lecturer has a duty to guide students, and to ensure that students are exposed to the items on the syllabus. But, it is contrary to the whole spirit of the academic enterprise for students to expect that questions in an examination will reflect only the substance of what is taught in class.
No one can reasonably suggest that examinations should be set in a manner that is deliberately unfair to students. Neither, however, can it be argued that an examination must be simply a test of whether students can recite a set of facts supplied to them by the lecturer. The student from the University of Technology appeared to presume, or even to take it for granted, that the lecturer should have explained in great detail to the class every aspect of the compulsory question before placing it on the examination paper.
NO APPLICATION
This presumption does not stand up at the CXC level (or what the slightly pedantic insist on calling the CSec level). Most certainly, it does not apply for the Advanced level. And, come to think of it, it did not apply for First Formers at KC in the 1970s, for we were all expected to undertake our own, independent reading on various topics.
So, for me, the most painful thing about hearing the complaining student (who is now thinking about court action) is that he just has not understood the purpose of education. He seems to believe that students do not have to read books.
Stephen Vasciannie is a professor at the University of the West Indies and a consultant in the attorney-general's chambers.
