Female Teachers’ Participation In Principalship Of Secondary Schools Of West Shewa Zone, Oromia Regional State

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate female teachers’ participation in principalship of secondary schools of West Shewa zone. To achieve this purpose, mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) research was employed. To conduct this study 7 woredas were randomly selected. In these woredas 7secondary schools were selected according to their accessibility for this study, because of time limitation, shortage of finance and difficulties to manage the whole population. In these schools 7 principals and 7 vice principals were purposively selected, and also 78 female teachers and 100 male teachers were selected by random sampling method. Questionnaires and interview were used to collect the data. The Validity of the instruments checked under the close guidance of the advisor. To check the reliability of the instruments pilot test was conducted in 2 schools which were out of the sample schools on 20 teachers. The result of reliability checked by Cronbach’s Alpha was=.929. The analysis of the quantitative data was performed in the help of SPSS version 20 by using the mean value and standard deviation. The significant value of group differences calculated by independent t-test at the level of α=.05. Besides this, triangulation and transcriptions was used for the qualitative data analysis. Accordingly, the findings of this study shows that:females are perceived in schools as less powerful on the school principal position than men,the role of a principal was problematic for female than male because females have no experience, traditionally masculine characteristics are considered to be more positively valued than feminine characteristics, female lacking in attributes of forceful, active, emotionally stable, independent, and rational. In addition, female preferring to be housewives and mothers than initiating them to be leader because they refused by persons with traditional gender role attitudes, because of traditional gender stereotypes teachers uncomfortable about women in high-status positions,many males belief to stop marital life with a female who is in principalship, lack of female leaders as role models, lack of support from family, lack of personal preparation of females, low level of acceptance by teachers were under the perception of teachers in schools for female affect female teachers participation on principalship. The other challenges for female teachers in principal positions includes, covertly female face discrimination, less implementation of affirmative action, the position was occupied by male in schools, females couldn’t get opportunities to show their talents, lack of handle discipline problem in school, lack of selfconfidence of females to participate and the burden of home work and family life were the major challenges affect female teachers participation in principalship. Generally, it is concluded that female teachers were influenced to participate in principalship through the low perception of school society- teachers and other workers, lack of personal preparation of female teachers and lack of implementing affirmative action concerning organizational factors. The researcher recommended that,the government should have given different trainings and workshops for teachers to bring behavioral change on the perception they have towards female principalship; the woreda education offices should apply affirmative action during the selection and recruitment of school principals; the schools should have been assigned female teachers’ at the bottom leadership positions such as unit leader, pedagogical head center, club coordinator, and department head and in PTA members to practice leadership roles and to get experience; the woreda education office should have increase female teachers in the secondary school teaching staff because the more the number of female teachers exists in the staff is the more female competent may exist for educational leadership positions; and also the woreda education offices with the cooperation of schools should facilitate the place of child care for female leaders and teachers in school organizations