Women Teachers in Africa

Challenges and possibilities

Nelly Stromquist, Steven Klees, Jing Lin, Nelly P. Stromquist, Steven J. Klees, Jing Lin, Nelly Stromquist, Steven Klees, Nelly P. Stromquist, Steven J. Klees, Jing Lin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138220669
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315412351
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Through qualitative research methods, this book engages in a holistic understanding of cultural, economic, and institutional forces that interact to produce the underrepresentation of women as school teachers in four sub-Saharan African countries.

Comparative case studies at the national level, using a common research design, show that teaching, despite being an attractive civil service job, offers low salaries and many challenges, especially when it takes place in rural areas. Combining professional duties with demanding family responsibilities further diminishes women's ability to stay in the teaching profession. The studies in this book attempt to bridge research findings with policy by developing action plans in cooperation with ministries of education of the respective countries.

Women Teachers in Africa will be of interest to academic researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students in the relevant fields, as well as development professionals, aid agency staff and education policy experts.

Chapter 1

Increasing the number of female schoolteachers in African countries

Effects, barriers, and policies¹

Caitlin S. Haugen, Steven J. Klees, Nelly P. Stromquist, Jing Lin, Truphena Choti, and Carol Corneilse

Introduction

For the past 40 years, girls’ education has been recognized as an international development priority. Research and policy agendas first focused on getting female students enrolled in school, and later efforts addressed the quality issues that helped retain them. Recent literature suggests that female teachers have an important role to play in improving both access and quality in a girl’s educational experience – especially in places where women are discriminated against and under-represented in political, employment, and leadership positions. Due to the economic, social, and cultural barriers girls are facing, many African countries present a special case, with some of the lowest enrollment rates in the world. Further compounding the problem, research aiming to tackle educational challenges often applies the erroneous deficit model with its negative assumptions that some cultural and national groups do not value education and will consequently fail to meet their own educational needs because of cultural deficiencies.

Girls’ enrollment data indicate progress towards getting girls into school, due in part to Education for All (EFA), an initiative carried out during the past 25 years and reinforced by the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the current Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite these advancements and research that cites the overwhelming benefits of educating girls, nearly 3.6 million girls of primary-school age worldwide are not in school (UNESCO, 2011, p. 24). The overall state of education across Africa is generally uneven and precarious. Conditions in the continent’s 53 countries vary significantly among and within them. Most of these countries generally have very high poverty rates, wide urban/rural divides, some of the lowest school enrollment and retention rates, the most serious quality challenges, and the widest gender gaps anywhere in the world (UIS, 2010). In sub-Saharan Africa, the net enrollment rate for girls is 75% in primary school and 23% in secondary school. Notably, the net primary enrollment rate for girls in sub-Saharan Africa was 55% in 1999, indicating significant increases in girls’ enrollment rates in the lower grades. Again, the continent exhibits considerable differences. For example, in 2005, 67% of the children in East and Southern Africa – but only 52% of the children in West and Central Africa – completed primary education and continued on to secondary school (and a majority of those who did not attend were girls) (Rihani, 2006).

Getting girls into school, however, is only part of the task. Many females leave school soon after entering. Girls have much lower completion rates than boys, especially in secondary school. Even if girls get to school and stay, they do not necessarily receive a high-quality, relevant education there (Rugh, 2000; Levine and Birdsall, 2005). Quality has long been recognized as one of the most important issues in girls’ education, and it has been a priority in the international development agenda for many years. Providing a quality education, however, presents researchers and practitioners with serious challenges. Quality is difficult to define, and the variables are difficult to identify and measure (Nilsson, 2003); moreover, it requires resources few governments have or are willing to provide. Consistently, however, teachers are considered a major factor when considering educational quality (UIS, 2010).

Recent literature suggests that female teachers have an important role to play in improving educational quality and access for girls. Increasing the number of women teachers is often cited as a major strategy for promoting girls’ education, especially in developing countries.² Many researchers recommend the deployment of more female teachers as one answer to addressing some of the serious access, quality, and equity issues girls face when trying to obtain education (see, for example, Rugh, 2000; World Bank, 2001; Nilsson, 2003; Herz and Sperling, 2004; Rihani, 2006; Roby, Lambert, and Lambert, 2009).

While increasing the number of female teachers is often suggested as a strategy for tackling the challenges of girls’ education, there is no literature to date that analyzes and summarizes research of the effects on girls’ educational experience if they have had women teachers. This chapter aims to contribute to filling this gap. First, we examine assertions about female teachers by reviewing quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence which shows whether increasing the number of female teachers improves girls’ educational achievement and attainment. In our analysis, we review literature on the effects of being taught by women teachers on girls’ educational experience, and we identify the challenges that women entering the teaching profession are facing in the African context. Finally, we briefly highlight policy and practice recommendations for tackling teacher supply and demand issues in Africa in an effort to get more women into the teaching force.

To assess the impact of female teachers, we consulted literature that either directly or indirectly evaluated the effects of teacher variables on student outcomes, retention, and enrollment. Some research specifically focused on the effects of teachers’ gender, while other studies only examined teachers’ gender as a variable in a larger analysis. While we did in some cases review literature that did not consider either student or teacher gender, we emphasized findings from research that examines effects of being taught by female teachers on female students’ educational experiences. We found that the literature on the effects of being taught by female teachers was limited.

While this analysis attempts to paint a comprehensive picture of the various components of recruiting more women to be teachers, the body of available research presents some limitations. Most research focuses on developed countries and thus may have limited applicability to African countries. In addition, the vast majority of the literature is quantitative, which generally tells us little about the social, cultural, and gender dynamics created by various factors affecting the recruitment and experience of female teachers. Although there is abundant research investigating teacher variables – such as years of experience or training – and how those variables affect student academic outcomes, almost all of this research focuses on the United States and ignores gender, and it almost exclusively uses standardized tests to assess student learning. The experience of educators and students in the United States and other developed country contexts varies dramatically from that of female teachers and girl students in Africa. It is therefore problematic to apply these findings to assess the effects of being taught by female teachers in countries where girls are under-represented in education and facing quality challenges. Nonetheless, with these cautions in mind, we included some of this research in order to paint a broader global picture of this complex issue.

Research on the effects of teacher gender, especially in developing countries, is quite limited. Relatively few studies focus on the effects of female teachers’ teaching on girls’ education, especially in African countries. Further, few studies examine the experience of teachers on the ground or examine the barriers individuals encounter when attempting to enter and stay in the teaching profession (for an exception, see Stromquist et al., 2013). A major limitation is the scarcity of research (in English), which presents a gender perspective on all of these aspects of teachers and their profession. So while on the one hand the applicability of findings from different contexts must be interpreted with caution, on the other hand, the African and developing country literature is sparse, so sometimes drawing on other literature was necessary.

Girls’ education as an international priority

The United Nations’ World Conferences for Women in 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1995 recognized the importance of educating girls. Girls’ education has appeared on major international conference programs of action such as the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 and the Women’s Empowerment and Employment Conference in Copenhagen in 2010. The World Education Forum in Jomtien in 1990 followed by one in Dakar in 2000 established EFA, with a major focus on universal primary education (UPE) and gender parity in education. Similarly, the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG) focused on universal primary education and the third specified eliminating gender disparity worldwide, including in education. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) build on the MDGs, and several have a gender focus. The fourth SDG commits to eliminating gender disparities in education, the fifth commits to achieving gender equality, and many of the other goals include gender considerations (United Nations, 1994; UNICEF, 2008; Randell and Gergel, 2009; Migiro, 2010; UNDSD, 2016).

Girls’ education changed into an international development priority over time. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UN in 1989, is the first legally binding convention that specifically recognized the rights of children.³ In it, access to a free education is identified as one of those rights. EFA and the MDGs launched education for all children onto the international agenda with force. In order to get more children into schools, international aid agencies, governments, and non-governmental agencies focused their energy and resources on interventions aimed at increasing enrollments – such as school construction and eliminating school fees. EFA and the MDGs also singled out girls’ education for special attention, recognizing the barriers unique to female students. The original target date for EFA was 2000, but was changed to 2005 and then most recently to 2015 because few countries met the targeted goals.⁴ The SDGs introduced a broader focus on gender and incorporated gender considerations into most of the goals overall. Despite the challenges, progress has been made with these efforts (Nilsson, 2003; UNESCO, 2004), but many countries are still at serious risk of not meeting UPE or gender equality goals. One message is clear, however: educating girls is widely recognized as an essential component of the international development agenda.

Effects of being taught by female teachers

Teacher variables are a major consideration when examining quality issues in education (Nilsson, 2003; UNESCO, 2011). Many recommendations about quality, especially those concerning girls, center on the training, retention, and recruitment of teachers. A large proportion of research about the effects of teacher variables or characteristics, which mostly does not consider teacher or student gender, focuses on student performance in the United States. Most of this research is quantitative and debates the importance of teachers’ years of experience, levels of certification, and training on how students score on standardized tests (see, for example, Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedges, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain, 2005; Aslam and Kingdon, 2007).

Policy and research reports suggest increasing the number of women in the teaching profession as a strategy for getting girls into school and retaining them (Rugh, 2000; World Bank, 2001; Herz and Sperling, 2004; Rihani, 2006). However, increasing the number of female teachers is often proposed as a strategy with little empirical backing. A major gap in research to date is a comprehensive synthesis on the effects of female teachers’ teaching on girls’ education. The next sections aim to begin filling that gap by examining the effects female teachers have on girls’ enrollment, retention, academic performance, and school experiences.

Effect on enrollment and retention

The strongest evidence that female teachers affect girls’ education concerns enrollment. As the number of women teachers grows, so does girls’ enrollment. Some research suggests that parents are more likely to send their daughters to school if there is a female teacher (Herz and Sperling, 2004; Rihani, 2006). Specific to Africa, Handa (1999) makes a case for female teachers after applying an econometric model in Mozambique to extrapolate an increase in school enrollments. He notes,

School quality, measured by the number of trained teachers in the administrative post, has a positive and significant impact on enrollment, but it is the gender composition of the teaching staff that is even more important in determining the household decision to send children to school. Both the simple proportion of teachers who are female, as well as the share of trained female teachers among all teachers are important positive determinants of enrollment rates. Raising the proportion of female teachers from 0.37 to 0.50 in the administrative post will raise enrollment rates by roughly 5 percentage points.

(p. 26)

In a multivariate analysis of survey data from nearly 220,000 households in 30 developing countries (19 of which are in Africa), Huisman and Smits (2009) measured the effects of school quality factors on parents’ decisions to send their children to school. They found that as the percentage of female teachers increased in a school district, the likelihood that girls went to school also increased after controlling for family variables (including family wealth, fathers’ education level, parents’ occupations, and family composition). They also found that the presence of female teachers mitigated some of the barriers that kept both boys and girls out of school – educational quality factors (such as long distances to school, lack of adequate buildings or materials, and student-teacher ratios), familial factors (such as low family income or parents who had little or no education), and cultural factors (women who are expected to live with their husbands’ families after marriage). Specific to girls, Huisman and Smits found that the more social and cultural disadvantages a girl faced, the greater the effects of her being taught by a female teacher. In areas where parents were highly unlikely to send their girls to school because of sociocultural expectations, enrollment among girls was higher in schools with female teachers.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ 2010 Education Statistics Digest (UIS, 2010) focused on girls’ education and noted that the percentage of female teachers at the primary level is correlated with girls’ gross enrollment rates in secondary school. The three countries with the lowest gross enrollment rate at the secondary level for girls are all African countries: Central African Republic (10%), Chad (12%), and Somalia (5%); these countries also have some of the lowest proportions of female primary teachers – 14%, 28%, and 17%, respectively. The presence of female teachers also appeared to affect retention rates, sometimes for both boys and girls. Generally, the report found that schools with more gender-balanced workforces tend to affect a girl’s ability to join and stay in school positively.

It also seems that increases in girls’ enrollment in school do not have negative repercussions on the enrollment of boys. In rural Pakistan, for example, the presence of female teachers increased girls’ enrollment, but did not appe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Increasing the number of female schoolteachers in African countries: Effects, barriers, and policies
• 2. Women teachers in Liberia: Social forces accounting for professional underrepresentation
• 3. Women teachers in Tanzania: Barriers encountered and policy recommendations
• 4. Women teachers in Uganda: Voices from the field
• 5. Women teachers in Togo: Tradition and power in the construction of gender
• Conclusions
• Epilogue: A note on teacher salaries
• Index