‘More women heads needed’

NOT ENOUGH women were heads of schools, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said yesterday.

She used a seminar for the establishment of support networks for women principals in Pretoria yesterday to address issues around the shortage of women principals, as well as the department’s plan to get more women into leadership positions.

Motshekga said men dominated leadership positions, despite the fact that more women worked in the education sector. Although some headway had been made with an increasing number of women being promoted into leadership positions, a lot more had to be done before equality would be reached.

“We noted on Wednesday, when we had a Women’s Day debate in Parliament, the great advances we have made since 1994. We welcomed the growing representation of women in Parliament, now beyond 40 percent.

“But we said there were areas calling for more action. The workplace is one of them. And, thus, we welcomed the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill. Once passed, it will help enforce gender equity in the private and public sectors.”

The minister said that for a long time women had occupied lower positions in schools. “The situation is worse in secondary schools where the majority of principals, their deputies and heads of department are male. This is a cause for concern, particularly because women constitute the majority in society and in the education sector in particular.

“Female teachers overwhelmingly dominate the teaching ranks, as there are 257 633 female teachers (68.3 percent) and 119 579 male teachers (31.7 percent) in public schools in the country.” But “there are only 8 210 female principals and 14 337 male principals appointed in permanent posts. Female principals represent only 36.4 percent of all principals, while 63.6 percent are male”.

“Clearly, these figures are not representative of government’s vision of redressing gender equity.”