by Lizana Oberholzer @LO_EduforAll
Women play a pivotal role as role models to inspire the future generation of female leaders in education, whether it is in schools or in Higher Education. According to Hewitt (2020) and Osho (2018), 56.6% of the university student body is comprised of women. The Higher Education workforce, however, reflects a different picture where 45.3% of the workforce are women, as outlined by the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) data. What is interesting to note is that the representation of women in the leadership and management workforce is even lower at 27.5%.
Osho (2018) highlights that apart from the challenges of low female representation in leadership in higher education, there are also concerns regarding BAME female representation, and that 0.5% of UK female professors are Black. It’s clear that these issues need urgent attention.
Women in HE often face similar challenges to their counterparts in schools. Hughes, as cited in Findings (2013), outlines that HE contexts and working conditions in HE contexts don’t often accommodate the needs of their female workforce, and they often suit men better. Women with young families often struggle to balance their commitments with family life. In addition, it is often perceived that when women go on maternity leave their academic career comes to an end or is on an indefinite pause. In some cases, some university departments, when faced with maternity leave, had to think how to support or accommodate the needs of young female academics for the first time, as they have never had a female colleague to support until very recently. Findings (2013) and Osho (2018) outline how initiatives such as Glass Ceiling and Athena Swan were introduced to shatter the glass ceiling, in the hope that when women are supported and championed they will also provide strong role models for others to follow, and future generations will be able to progress with ease onto the leadership ladder.
Although the data reflects that the workforce in Higher Education represents a larger percentage of female staff vs male staff in some HE contexts, as cited by Hewitt (2020) it cannot be ignored that at times, more needs to be done to support women in order for them to succeed as academics and in leadership positions in HE. Flexible working opportunities, not only to fulfil academic teaching roles, but research and leadership roles, need to be considered to enable women to lead and contribute in a sustainable way to meet the needs of the communities they serve.
