THE lack of women on the governing bodies of Scottish universities has been described as stark and alarming by a Government minister.
Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, also indicated he may legislate to improve gender balance.
The Herald revealed yesterday that just 25% of members of university ruling Courts were female, despite the fact women academics make up more than half the workforce.
The figures for 2011/12, compiled by student body NUS Scotland, also show that none of the current chairs of university Courts are women.
The Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill aims to put in place a new code of conduct for universities, which could require each governing body to ensure at least 40% of its membership is female.
Mr Russell, giving evidence on the Bill, said: "I do think there is room for improvement. I will consider whether an amendment should be laid to take that further.
"I know there is the suggestion that there should be a proportion or a percentage and I will actively consider that.
"It is stark, the situation that we have. I think it is alarming that we are still in that situation."
Earlier, Mr Russell denied the Bill gave more power to ministers, arguing it underpinned good governance, rather than interfering.
He also stressed the importance of a cap on fees charged by Scottish universities to students from the rest of the UK.
Last week, the Committee of Scottish Chairs called for the cap to be scrapped, allowing universities to set fees.
Liz Smith, education spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: "This Bill is a mess. It is badly constructed and seems set to create only more confusion.
Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie said: "Mr Russell must resist his natural temptation to meddle and reconsider how best the Government can achieve the improvements we all want to see."
Scottish Labour MSP Neil Findlay, added: "There is a real lack of clarity about the purpose, benefits and scope of this Bill."
Mary Senior, Scottish official of the UCU lecturers union said: "Legislation is required to compel universities to do more on widening access."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article