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Centre for the study of Education in an International Context (CEIC)
INTERCOM ARCHIVE
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Centre for the study of Education in an International Context (CEIC)INTERCOM ARCHIVE |
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Women are under-represented in senior management positions in international
schools. This statement is rarely greeted with surprise. The response
varies from a resigned "What's new?" to a diatribe on the unfairness
of the structure of society. Neither of these responses is particularly
helpful and I believe that those of us who are involved in international
education should be addressing this issue in practical ways. We have done
a lot of work in "internationalising the curriculum" and creating
an atmosphere of intercultural awareness in our schools but we still offer
our students and our colleagues stereotypical role models in terms of
who runs the organisations. The creation of a predominantly female management
team in an international school still causes more eyebrows to be raised
than the creation of an all male one. This in spite of the fact that 60%
of the work force is female. What follows are some practical ways of redressing
the balance and suggestions for further investigation. Women do not embark on their international teaching careers with a view
to making steady upward progress until they achieve senior management
positions. Rather, they change jobs as opportunities arise and their circumstances
and interests change. Women themselves should be encouraged by senior
colleagues to seek out advisors to help them with career planning. Perhaps
career planning sessions could be made available at large professional
conferences run by organisations such as ECIS and maybe this facility
could be made available at Summer Schools! Now that so many international teaching appointments are made through
recruitment fairs it would be interesting to find out how many women attend,
what their success rate is and whether or not they secure posts which
eventually lead them to senior management positions. When looking for a promotion women tend to focus on the items in the
job description which they cannot do. However, with effective mentoring
women are enabled to look beyond their immediate circumstances and become
aware that they are capable of greater responsibility than they have so
far envisaged. Mentoring, if it exists in international schools, is haphazard.
However, by encouraging individuals to seek more responsibility, a mentoring
programme could readily improve still further the learning going on in
our schools. As many international schools are relatively isolated, appropriate role
models for women aspiring to the top jobs have to be found elsewhere.
Attendance at a conference, workshop or summer school can often give women
access, not only to appropriate role models but also to the informal networks
which can be so useful. Women should also be encouraged to be presenters
at such meetings. It would be interesting to look more closely at the characteristics of
delegates and presenters at conferences and to establish the reasons for
attendance (or non-attendance) at such events. A very rough count revealed
that at a recent IB Middle Years conference (roughly 300 delegates) about
half of those attending were women. However, the presenters were predominantly
men. At the IB Coordinators regional (Africa, Europe, Middle east) conferences
the delegates are predominantly male as are the presenters. Some organisations involved in international education are addressing
the issue of the under representation of women in senior management positions.
The International Baccalaureate Organisation, in its search for representatives
from different cultures to serve on various committees, also seems to
have taken the opportunity to seek out women to appoint for this purpose.
In addition, several key positions at the Curriculum and Assessment Centre
in Cardiff have gone to women who are outstanding in their field. If this
is deliberate policy rather than a fortuitous accident, it would be encouraging
if the IB would publish and disseminate this policy to member schools.
Other organisations, including schools, could do more to recognise the
problems associated with child care and the effect on fulfilling professional
responsibilities. My own school provides this facility after school and
extended it last year for the duration of a weekend conference. Much needs
to be done by women themselves as well as the schools which employ them
to ensure that the human resource potential of more than half the work
force is actualised.
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