Opportunities and Challenges of Women in School Leadership: The Case of Kirkos and Gulele Sub City Government Schools
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Date
2014-11-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study in/ended to assess the current status of female leadership in the government
schools, the availability of opportunities to promote women to school leadership at the
national level, to assess the availability of school provisions that ensure the promotion of
women to school leadership and identify the challenges of female school leaders in the
school systems of Gulele and Kirkos Sub cities of Addis Abeba. The study used a mixed
approach combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods. On the one
hand, quantitative data were required to understand the current status of female
leadership in the school systems of Gulele and Kirkos Sub cities. Qualitative data were
also required to assess the availability of policies that provide opportunities to promote
female school leaders, and the extent to which such provisions have been utilized by
schools. In this regard, the Women 's Directorate of the Ministry of Education, the
Gender Office of the Addis Abeba Education Bureau and the Education Bureaus of both
Gulele and Kirkos Sub Cities were the sources of data for this study. The quantitative
information was collected from the school to oversee the status and challenges of female
school leaders through questionnaire. In terms of qualitative approach, the study
explored existing national policies and school provisions to answer the basic questions
of this study. moreover, the SPSS package was used to address and to summarize the
findings of the questionnaire and document review. Both the national education
statistical reports and the quantitative data generated by this study confirmed that female
school leaders are highly underrepresented in the school leadership (almost nonexistent
in high school systems). Among the various attitudinal and institutional factors that are
limiting females , representation in leadership positions within school systems, one major
challenge is the gender-role stereotyping that determines leadership as a field solely
reserved for males. Furthermore, institutional capacities of schools to promote female
educators to educational leadership positions have also been found to be weak due to the
lack of commitment of senior officials in addressing the women empowerment and the
absence of financial resource allocated for gender programs among others. The research
results suggest that all government schools should have provisions that reflect the
national standards of promoting females to school leadership. The Women's Directorate
of the Ministry of Education should also devise a monitoring system to track down
progress made towards the participation of females in leadership positions. And
concerned stakeholders of the Ministry of Education government organs should
capacitate schools to promote females to leadership positions in a realistic, free from
gender bias and transparent way.
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Keywords
Opportunities and Challenges of Women