An investigation of women advancement in managerial positions in public secondary schools Mombasa county

Abstract

The purpose of the study will be to investigate on women advancement to managerial positions in public secondary schools Mombasa County- Kenya. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to determine the influence of gender roles on women advancement to managerial positions in public secondary schools, to find out the stereotyping on women advancement to managerial positions, to identify cultural values on women advancement to managerial positions, to recommend strategies within which women advancement to managerial positions among teachers will be achieved. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. A sample size of 150 teachers, 34 principals and deputy principals respectively were selected to participate in the study. Purposive sampling, stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were used for the study. Purposive sampling was used to sample principals and deputy principals, stratified random sampling for the sub groups of female and male teachers and simple random sampling for the teachers. The study used interview guides for the principals and questionnaires for the deputy principals and teachers to gather data. The validity of the instruments was ascertained by supervisors while reliability of the instrument was tested by test-retest Pearson product moment coefficient moment formula. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation with the help of statistical package for social services (SPSS) version 17. The analyzed data was presented in form of frequency tables, bar graphs and pie charts. The study therefore concluded that the gender roles influenced career advancement of women to administrative positions, traditional stereotyping such as belief that women lack leadership skills influenced the women advancement to administrative positions, traditional cultural values such as relationships and socialization were barriers to women career advancement to managerial positions and lack of role models in the high positions of administration negatively influenced the women advancement to administrative positions in the public secondary schools in Mombasa County. The study recommended that the government should empower career women to take up administrative positions in public secondary schools despite their gender roles, Teachers Service Commission should give women more opportunities to take up administrative positions as they have proved that they are capable of leadership, society should be sensitized to abandon traditional cultural practices or beliefs which could make not advance their careers and more mentorship programmes should be made available to the female teachers by the TSC to encourage more and more women to take up management positions in schools.