Employment Equity in the Tertiary Education Sector in the Western Cape

Abstract

This article seeks to summarise some important issues arising from a recent report from the Department of Mercantile Law at Stellenbosch University into employment equity in the tertiary sector.2 The Employment Equity Act 1998 had been introduced as a key vehicle for transforming the largely white and male character of the middle and senior tiers of the South African workforce as a product of discrimination during the apartheid era. The report analyses, mainly through annual returns to the Department of Labour, the extent of progress towards achieving stated aims adopted by each institution in the tertiary sector in the Western Cape, to transform the workforce between 2000 and 2003. It comments on an absence of ambition in target setting, identifies indifferent and inadequate performance and then attempts to identify necessary change to improve the current position.