Teachers attitude towards female school managers in mixed public secondary schools in Nairobi province, Kenya.

Abstract

Today women are struggling with the delicate balance of attending to the needs of both their families and their careers. Women school managers have job competition with men which bring up teachers attitudes, culture and beliefs of the society. Education management in Kenya is dominated by men, though the proportion of trained female teachers has been increasing at a faster rate than that of male teachers, the change has not been mirrored in Education Management Munroe (2001) assert that there has been a lot of gender discrimination mostly based on the cultural belief of the people. This study investigated teachers' attitude towards female school managers in public mixed secondary school in Nairobi. The study was carried out in Nairobi province. The research used Ex post-Facto design. The target population was 400 teachers from 20 public mixed secondary schools and a sample size of 20 principals, 84 female HODs as well as 250 teachers which was 88.5% of the population. The questionnaires were used as research instruments. The questions were designed in line with the likert summated rating scale which was used to elicit responses used to gage the respondents' attitudes towards female managers in public mixed secondary schools. Four objectives together with four research questions were used to maintain focus throughout the study. The research found the following; That there was a gender imbalance in the senior most posts of head teacher where we had 68.75% male and 31.25% female. Most of the head teachers had a positive attitude towards female teachers in management that is 81.25% aged long serviced and adequately in-service head teachers had a positive attitude towards female managers. Educational level affected the attitude of teachers towards female managers; most teachers had university level of education 59.7% were of the opinion that responsibilities in public mixed secondary schools should be shared equally among male and female teachers. It emerged that gender did not influence teachers attitude towards female managers as most female HODs that is 61.7% took men to be more aggressive in administration of public mixed secondary schools than female teachers. Cultural beliefs, values and practices, do not influence teachers' attitude towards teachers in management, most of the headteachers that is 81.25% often recommended female teachers for promotion while 18.75% quite often recommended female teachers for promotion.