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The Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Venda does not yet have its own web site. The NRF's Women-in-Research project is making this information available as a service to the research community; for further information about the Centre please contact Esther Njiro: Einjiro@univen.ac.za Priority Programmes Academic The Centre for Gender Studies offers a full-fledged academic programme leading to the award of university degrees and diplomas. All the courses will be at post-graduate level targeting mainly the professionals in the field in need of gender perspective in-put to their work. The Centre will encourage all schools to incorporate gender perspectives in the subjects offered at undergraduate level. The following degrees and diplomas shall be awarded:
The core-course is intended to be inter-disciplinary and to provide students with an introductory overview for those who have no training in gender studies. At the Honours and M.A level the course will elaborate on details of the current status of gender studies. The Centre hopes to draw on expertise from different disciplines here in University of Venda as well as from other Universities or and institutions. An important focus of the course is to correct the inaccuracies and misconceptions of what gender studies are all about. The thrust of the programmes for the Centre is to place gender studies within the African cultural context. Criteria for Intake At first students will be admitted according to existing rules and regulations of the university. That is, academic committee of the University of Venda will control the admission of students to all the programmes. Later when the Centre is established, the criteria will be formulated and controlled by the Centre for Gender Studies. Community programmes One of the contributions of the Centre for gender studies is impact knowledge on the communities around which the university is situated. The Centre will do this by facilitating forums for debates and dissemination of information to and from the rural communities of this province. In this respect the Centre hopes to work in collaboration with other institutions, individuals and organisations to form a strong team of trainers and researchers. A multi-sectoral team of professionals drawn from different disciplines and orientations is expected to provide training, dissemination and evaluation on gender concerns at all levels of society. In addition, the Centre is to establish close networks between academics and community workers for development. The Centre is to be a hub of workshops, seminars, exhibitions, performances and fora for debates and discussions by the academics as well as by those working in communities around the university. Administration of the Centre for Gender Studies The Centre intends to recruit at least five senior research fellows who together with the current director for the Centre will form the core of administration and teaching for the Centre. Until then the administration of the Centre will be as follows: An Interim Steering Committee comprising of the following members will act as the board of the Centre for Gender Studies. It will comprise of the following:
Achievements of the Centre for Gender Studies Although the Centre has been in operation only for a less than a month, it has initiated dialogues with various departments within the University of Venda for the incorporation of a gender perspective in their academic undergraduate programmes as preparation for the post-graduate curriculum of the Centre for Gender Studies. The current Head has presented a papers to a number of international conferences for example, Correlation Between Poverty, Gender and Health at the University of South Africa Pretoria; Women’s Empowerment and the Anthropology of Participatory Development in Post-Beijing Africa at the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, USA) among others. She has been assigned to teach a course on Gender and Anthropology to under-graduate and honours students at University of Venda. She has been requested to teach an M.Phil course at University of Stellenbosch. The Centre intends to impact on the community through collaboration with the Gender Equity Unit and the Office of the Status of Women. We are in the initial stages of advocating for a non-governmental body that will put into place a community Centre/shelter for abused women and men. The Centre is also in the initial stages of developing modules on gender analysis and training for all sorts of research and empowerment of rural communities. Modules for evaluating impact in gender-related interventions of community projects and programmes are also being constituted. Contact address Head: Centre for Gender
Studies Tel. (0159) 824757
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