Finding the pathway

Women teachers' aspirations in northern Pakistan

Women teachers face enormous cultural challenges in northern Pakistan. Research from the Aga Khan University explores women's experiences of trying to build teaching careers within this patriarchal society and looks at how they balance their multiple commitments.

After independence in 1947, girls' education was seen as essential for teaching family responsibilities and preparing girls for traditionally female professions, such as teaching. However, the National Education Policy 1998-2010 now emphasises education equally as a right for girls and boys.

Interventions to increase girls' attendance at school included recruiting more female teachers between 1990 and 2000 (at primary level from 33.4 to 44.2 percent and at secondary level from 32 to 54.3 percent). While increases at secondary level are due to encouraging more women teachers in girls-only schools, growth at primary level can be associated with an increase in mixed-gender schools. Current government statistics from 2005 to 2006 show that nationally, women make up 36 percent of teachers in government-managed schools. Regional numbers are still lower, with 28 percent for the Northern Areas.

In the Northern Areas, teaching is recognised as the most appropriate off-farm employment opportunity for women:

• Women are usually appointed to schools within their own communities, reducing the chances of them interacting with men they are not related to.
• Short school days allow women to fulfil their home-based responsibilities such as farming and cattle rearing in the early morning and afternoons.
• Teaching, particularly at primary and middle school levels, is seen to fit in with women's nurturing family roles.

The research reveals tensions between family commitments and professional aspirations. Women usually take up teaching as it can fit around family duties. Yet it is often other family members who resist women's attempts at professional development and prevent them from working away from home.

Some women manage to negotiate their dual roles, for example, by contributing their teaching salary to the household income, reducing the dependency on family cattle and using weekends to complete bigger farming tasks.

Women also find it hard to assume leadership roles in schools. Professional challenges they face include:

• unsupportive workplace and organisational structures, such as resistance to female leadership and the absence of childcare or transport facilities
• male-oriented school leadership practices
• regional education offices located too far from schools for women to visit easily
• weekend management committee meetings.

Teacher training, educational leadership and management courses alone cannot ensure women teachers' full participation in school life. Strategies need to support women in schools on several levels, for example:

• School authorities should be prepared to make women teachers' families better aware of the importance and value of career development.
• School meetings and training activities should take place in physically and culturally accessible locations.
• Establishing women teacher and female education leader networks could encourage women to link up with their peers in nearby communities.
• Government-led teacher education programmes need to include time and space for male and female teachers to reflect on and share their experiences.
• Education management courses must include a gender awareness component.

Dilshad Ashraf
Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development, IED-PDC, 1-5/B-VII, F. B. Area Karimabad, PO Box No.13688, Karachi-75950, Pakistan
T +92 21 6347611-4
F +92 21 6347616
dilshad.ashraf@aku.edu

See also

Women Teachers' Experiences in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education-University of Toronto, Canada, by Dilshad Ashraf, 2004

Gender & Education in Pakistan, Oxford University Press: Karachi, edited by R. Qureshi and J. F. A. Rarieya, 2007

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