Fed: women still face education barriers - NUS

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2001
Fed: women still face education barriers - NUS

CANBERRA, Aug 27 AAP - The high numbers of women taking part in education disguised
continuing barriers to their academic achievement, the National Union of Students (NUS)
said today.

Kicking off the union's annual Women in Education Week, NUS official Sarah McBratney
said the higher qualifications remained remote to many women.

"It's all too easy to look at women's overall participation rate of 54 per cent and
conclude that women have achieved equal participation in higher education," she said in
a statement.

"This is a simplistic reading of the situation when in fact women are only 15.5 per
cent of students completing higher doctorates, 34 per cent of university academics, 10
per cent of professors and 14 per cent of undergraduate engineering students.

"Women are still concentrated in undergraduate study and in the traditionally female
disciplines such as education and humanities, which lead to lower-paid jobs."

Ms McBratney said the costs of education for students had risen sharply under the Coalition
federal government which had slashed student income support payments.

"Women already earn just two-thirds of the average male wage but add to this (Prime
Minister John) Howard's lifetime of debt and it seems that women have scant chance of
breaking out of the lower-paid job cycle and (so-called) traditional women's professions,"

she said.

AAP dep/daw/vr

KEYWORD: WOMEN

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