Women and Leadership Conference Continues Sessions

Doha, September 18 (QNA) - Activities of the three-day "Women and Leadership Conference, which discusses Preparing Women for Leadership in Higher Education continued today.
The conference is organized by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, one of the partner universities of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), in cooperation with a number of Education City universities.
The activities of the second day of the conference included a session that discussed the factors that prevent women from entering engineering fields and assuming leadership roles in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the challenges women face in the engineering sector, starting from choosing the field to employment, with the presentation of examples from women’s experience in the oil and gas industry and the construction sector in Qatar and the region.
The session also touched on cultural barriers in work environments and the comparison between the Middle East and North Africa on one hand and Western countries (mainly North America) on the other, and how the new procedures could lead to a more favorable work environment for female engineers.
The second session of the conference, which came under the title "Preparing Females to Enter the Engineering Workforce in Qatar: Perspectives, Achievements and Challenges", discussed the duties of universities to ensure the success of female graduates and their access to equal opportunities to work and advancement in their fields upon graduation, especially that females who are pursuing engineering program at Texas A&M University at Qatar. For example, they represent 48 percent of the student body, nearly double the US national average. The session also featured a review of the views of some of the graduates about innovative and effective solutions to many of the problems they will face outside academia.
During the third session, a number of faculty members at Georgetown University in Qatar shared their experiences and insights in exploring different barriers and opportunities, strategies related to leadership, curricula, experiential lear Dr. Amal Mohammed Al-Malki, Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad bin Khalifa University, said in a press statement on the sidelines of the conference that this event, which brings together a large number of Education City universities and their women and academic leaders, aims to shed light on the challenges facing women in the academic field, noting that Arab and Gulf societies see that the academic field is one of the best fields for women, but the opportunities for them to assume leadership positions are limited. Al-Maliki asked: Is leadership a patriarchal system, and how can a woman balance her job as a leader in higher education with the requirements of her home as a family woman? naming and employment, and how to bring about diversity in higher education leadership. Gender inequalities in higher education leadership are significant.
Dr. Amal Al-Malki spoke about the importance of empowering women in the cultural, economic, political and academic fields, and the oppression that women in the Middle East and Africa suffer from in accessing their educational and leadership rights, and how the political, economic and health crises suffered by many countries in the region played the most prominent role in deepening women’s wounds and their status on the front lines as a victim of displacement, conflict, as well as handicapping and tyrannical regimes.
She added that the figures in the Middle East and North Africa indicate that the number of female graduates with higher education exceeds the number of male graduates, considering that this does not translate into the labor force, reviewing in this context some statistics that highlight the harm caused to women as a result of the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, armed conflicts and disasters witnessed in the Middle East and North Africa.
For his part, HE Dr. Mohamed Saif Al-Kuwari, Vice-Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee, said that the conference sheds light on the rights of Qatari women to hold leadership positions and that the issue of empowering women in the State of Qatar is progressing very well, noting that all international organizations and human rights call for women empowerment and their occupation of leadership positions in view of their competence, ability and academic degrees that qualify them for this. Therefore, leadership positions are matters of entitlement to women.
He pointed out that international organizations view with appreciation the positive steps taken by the State of Qatar to empower women and assume leadership positions.
He pointed out that the State of Qatar includes women ministers and leaders in many positions in all parts of the state, in the judiciary, universities and various ministries, which confirms that women are able to occupy high positions and succeed in them, which is what Qatar supports in order to grant these rights to Qatari women.
In the same context, HE Mr. Christian Tudor, Ambassador and Head of the European Union Mission to the State of Qatar, praised the steps taken by the State of Qatar in the field of women's empowerment, whether by providing educational opportunities or jobs and leadership positions, explaining that the European Union always considers women's issues with great importance, and therefore the Union is working to strengthen cooperation with the State of Qatar in this regard.
He stated that the European Union encourages the State of Qatar to continue this pioneering approach by supporting and empowering women and human rights, pointing out that he worked in Qatar as ambassador to the State of Romania during the period from (2015-2019), and he knows very well the efforts and measures taken by the State of Qatar in this regard, and that they are going according to a clear and distinct approach to ensure the provision of opportunities to support and empower women, in addition to positive steps in other issues such as human rights.(QNA)