WITH so many women going through the third level system you'd be forgiven for thinking that a goodly proportion of them are now making their way to senior positions within our colleges. But you would be wrong. The sad fact is that in the last decade of the 20th century, career prospects for women in academia are dismal.

Women remain concentrated at the lower levels and in part time and temporary positions. The picture painted by many women working in the sector is one of a male dominated hierarchy in which women are tolerated but rarely treated as equals. This is in stark contrast to the picture painted by the institutions themselves, which tell us that they are leading edge, world class centres of excellence.

If this is so, you'd have a right to expect that the same institutions would be models of good practice in the area of employment equality. The situation is particularly worrying when you consider that the third level sector is in the business of shaping young minds and training our future leaders. What sort messages are they sending out?

To be fair though, women have made some progress at third level, although it has been slow. In the 19th century, for example, no university would admit women undergraduates. And back in 1965 women represented only one quarter of all undergraduates in Ireland.

In the 30 years since 1965, the number of women attending university has increased sixfold - women now account for over half the number of university undergraduates in this country. During the same period the number of female students in the RTC/DIT sector has risen from a couple of hundred to almost 15,000. Just under half 43 per cent - of the students population in the extra university sector is now also female.

THE most recent figures available (1993-94) show that the country's seven universities can muster only 14 female professors between them - and this out of a grand total of 318 academics of that rank. Of 146 assistant professors only nine are women, while at senior lecturer level only 72 out of a total of 580 are female.

In university administration, too, men have the lion's share of the top jobs. At senior administrative level (excluding college officers) women hold down only one fifth of jobs, yet they make up over three quarters of the administrative workforce of our universities.

In the RTCs there are only a handful of women in senior positions. Figures for 1995 show that women represent only one quarter of RTC academic staff. None of the RTC directors, assistant principals or registrars is a woman, but there are two female secretary/financial controllers.

"The universities are mass employers," says Ailbhe Smyth, director of the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre at UCD, "but you can explain the poor representation of women in senior positions only by blockages in the appointments' system. Given the enormous focus on equality of opportunity at Government and EU level over the past 10 years, we have to infer that the universities are among the most resistant institutions in the State to activating equality policies."

Many women believe that the fact that university promotion is based on research and academic publication is a major stumbling block which prevents women getting promotion at university level. Women are concentrated in the arts and humanities which, unlike science and technology, attract minimal research funding. Teaching and pastoral care - areas in which women shine - are disregarded for promotion purposes.

AMERICAN research shows that for male academics the most productive period of research takes place between the ages of 35 and 40 years, while women's research peaks between the ages of 45 and 50. Typically, though, an academic is expected to have acquired a PhD by the age of 23 years and to have published a book by the age of 35 - the very years which coincide with women's child bearing years.

"The academic life presupposes good family support structures, but women are the support structures," says Grace Neville who lectures in French at UCC. "I wish that the people who select academics would realise that the model they are using is outmoded. When they see people who don't fit the model they disregard them. They are choosing future academics and high fliers from a very small pool. If women want a family life they are out of the running.

As in other professions, including medicine, many female academics put off or even miss out altogether on having families in order to devote themselves to their careers. Those female academics who opt to continue working and have children often find themselves in difficulties when seeking maternity leave.

An Irish Federation of University Teachers report, Academics Don't Have Babies Maternity Leave Among Female Academics by Anne Byrne and Nuala Keher, shows that maternity leave for women academics has to be negotiated so that the smooth running of departments remains undisturbed. Many women fail to use their full statutory maternity rights while over one third of women plan their pregnancies so that they give birth during vacation time.

The report shows that almost one quarter of women take on extra work immediately before and after birth in order to accommodate teaching and work schedules, while two thirds of women take on additional work to compensate for their absences. Some women even continue to work at home during maternity leave.

"ACADEMIC institutions have not adapted to the dual careers of women," says Nuala Keher. "Rather, women have attempted to fit family needs with job demands. As long as this pattern continues little change will occur. Sources of discrimination exist whereby workers do not make use of their statutory rights because of perceived adverse effects on their careers."

Sheelagh Drudy, chairperson of the Higher Education Equality Unit, says: "There must be recognition that people have family commitments as well as work commitments." Female academics point to the increased length of the teaching day, which causes child care difficulties - lectures scheduled from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., long after creches have closed, for example.

Many women are concerned that, even in areas where women are particularly strong, the numbers of female academics are decreasing. However, at RTC level, Claire Sinnott, secretary/financial controller at Cork RTC, points out that in the past recruitment into RTCs was technically based and traditionally attracted more men than women. "This is changing," she says, "but it will take a long time for more women to emerge."

The RTC Act, which took effect in 1993, stipulates that 40 per cent of RTC governing bodies must be female. "The governing bodies are responsible for the general management and policy making decisions of the colleges, so the inclusion of women is bound to make a difference in the future," Sinnott says.

Although she is the only woman in senior management at Cork RTC, the college has recently appointed its first female lecturers in civil and chemical engineering, she notes.

Many women working in the RTC sector insist that management positions - which receive little secretarial support - are of little attraction to them. "As a lecturer, you have a teaching commitment of 16 hours each week," explains one woman, and you can do a lot of your preparation at home. You get long holidays including the summer, Christmas and Easter. In management you get only six weeks holidays and nobody ever takes the full amount. The differential in pay is minimal and after tax it's just not worth it, but the difference in lifestyle is incredible."

Sinnott confirms: "I couldn't do the job I'm doing if I had a young family."

IN 1987 the HEA Committee on the Positions of Women in Higher Education presented its report and highlighted "the striking imbalances" between men and women academics at third level". As a result the HEA asked colleges to provide gender breakdowns of students and staff. "The more the figures are seen, the more the disparities are highlighted," says John Hayden, chief executive of the HEA.

The HEA's Equality Unit was established in 1993. Meanwhile the universities have all now published equality policies.

However, says Anne Clune, a senior lecturer in English at TCD, "although there is publicly expressed concern in the colleges about the position of women, there is no real commitment to doing anything about it. Nonetheless, women are unlikely to favour positive discrimination, she says, pointing to a general lack of promotional opportunity even for men.

Clune points to Carleton University in Canada where government funding was provided to create extra positions so that women could be regraded while the post ion of men remained unaffected. "This is the only example of a good scheme that I know of", she says.

Equality needs to move up the priority list, says Drudy. Women need good role models, mentoring and to be encouraged to embark upon research, she says. Colleges must take a more proactive role in management training. They need to set targets and monitor policies which encourage women to become involved in college committees.

Caroline Hussey, UCD's registrar, observes that the number of UCD female academics was regressing until six or seven years ago, when the college established an equality committee as a sub committee of the governing body. "By constantly putting the statistics before the governing body," she says, women are now on the agenda. I hope that my own appointment is giving a positive message to women."

UCD has been monitoring applications for junior academic posts over the past three years. "If you take the PhD cohort (in which women are in a minority) and compare it with the job applications women are under represented," she says. However, when women do apply their success rate is equal to men. This suggests that "only the cream are applying".

Meanwhile the college is seeking funding to examine the career paths of UCD's female graduates and PhDs to ascertain why so many of them are eschewing academia.