Mentoring as strategy to improve female access to secondary school leadership in Botswana

Abstract

There is continuous under representation of women in secondary school leadership in Botswana despite various efforts to empower them. The study focuses on whether mentoring can be used as a strategy to assist female teachers to ascend to leadership positions because there are more female teachers than males teachers, yet there are more male head teachers. The methodology used was qualitative where the primary data was collected through interviewing members of school management teams and representatives from the then Ministry of Education and Skills Development. Secondary data was based on analysis of documentary sources. Participants were purposively selected from ten secondary schools. The findings reveal that informal mentoring is prevalent amongst school managers, that mentoring could be a good strategy that can assist female teachers to ascend to leadership positions. In conclusion the employer needs to develop a mentoring programme that has to be first piloted, while all school management teams should be persuaded to be proactive and encourage mentoring relationships among their staff members. Key words: mentoring, protégé, strategy, empower, female, leadership.