Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate causes for the underrepresentation of women in top positions of the education sector of the catchment areas of Wolaita Sodo University. Hence, to realize this purpose, secondary school teachers, principals of secondary schools, and supervisors of all levels, and heads of education offices and departments of Dawro and Wolaita administrative zones were used as the target population. In order to make the study manageable, the sample secondary schools teachers were selected by simple random sampling technique, and principals and supervisors were selected through purposive sampling techniques. Descriptive survey research design and concurrent mixed approaches were applied. Both close-ended and open-ended questionnaires and unstructured interviews were used to collect data. Frequency counts, and percentages were employed for quantitative data through close-ended questionnaire. Data through qualitative questionnaire were narrated and used for the sake of triangulation. The finding showed that women were underrepresented due to self-related factors, socio-cultural factors, institutional factors, economic factors, and political-legal factors in the leadership positions of secondary and primary schools, principal ship positions, and supervisory positions. Thus, it was concluded that though the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has taken a number of affirmative actions and stipulated the issue of empowering women in the constitution, yet women were strikingly underrepresented in Dawro and Wolaita zones of south Ethiopia, particularly in the education sector. Therefore, it was recommended that taking into account that women are half the population, talented in leadership and management and the advantage of gender diversity in educational leadership institutions, government and the large society should strive towards empowering women.
Highlights
Women and the previously disadvantaged or minority groups in the country are not involved in management or leadership of educational institutions, in the developing countries of the world in general and in Africa in particular(Udo, 2011; Wells, 2009;Dencker, 2008)
CONCLUSIONS ü The findings showed that women in educational leadership positions as principals, supervisors, and district education offices in the two catchment zones of Dawro and Wolaita administrative zones were underrepresented because of institutional factors, women themselves related factors, socio-cultural factors, political-legal factors, and economic-technological factors
This indicated that authorities failed to understand the benefit of leadership diversity in organizations to bring about change for women themselves, institutions and the large society as well. ü Institutional problems were ranked first
Summary
Women and the previously disadvantaged or minority groups in the country are not involved in management or leadership of educational institutions, in the developing countries of the world in general and in Africa in particular(Udo, 2011; Wells, 2009;Dencker, 2008). There is still an imbalance and the progress of equity is very slow and uneven in Ethiopia in general and Dawro and Wolaita administrative zones in education sectors (WDZEDs, 2017) In this regard, Nkomo and Ngambi(2009) argue that African potential women leaders are missing from leadership agendum. No adequate studies were made to fill such a gap or no full-fledged solution was found except the general policy formulation of both the Federal and regional governments In this regard, the absence of women leaders in different educational leadership positions in the two zones caused alienation, frustration, and marginalization, and made retention and recruitment of the future aspiring women leaders more difficult (COOK, 2001; MoE, 2010).
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