A management course designed specifically to promote women educators began in Johannesburg this year — a first for South Africa.
Twenty-nine women educators from the Gauteng Department of Education are taking a five-module course, called Women in Management, at Regenesys School of Public Management. As part of the Gauteng education department’s employment equity and skills development programme, the department implemented a selection process to choose the 29 women.
The course is a structured 12-month development programme for promoting women managers, giving them mentorship in management with a specific focus on developing women in mathematics, science and technology.
Takalani Nwendamutswu, senior manager for human resource development in the Gauteng education department, says the necessity for this course lies in the peculiar position of women in education. “Women form the majority of teachers in the country, over 60%, but the majority of management positions are held by males. Women are well below 30% in management positions.
“In terms of transformation, it is difficult to just promote women if they don’t have the skills and the exposure. To promote equity we have to start the skilling process, which will ensure upliftment at all levels and will create new opportunities for women,” he says.
For him a critical issue is that there has to be “commitment from the top”, in this case the head of the Gauteng education department. Mwendamutswu feels that such a commitment exists in the department. Departmental head Malele Petje is driving the process and is determined to develop the skills of women, he adds.
“There were times when bureaucratic red tape nearly derailed this training process. This then nearly threatened the viability of the course. However, now the course is happening, and there are visible signs of success if you listen to the enthusiasm of the women participants,” says Nwendamutswu.
In the Gauteng education department women fill about 50% of senior management positions, he says, but the problem lies with a lack of equity at schools, which is the big concern. The majority of heads of departments and school principals are men.
One participant in the Regenesys management course is Beauty Moleke, a teacher from TM Letlhake Secondary School in Westonaria. She says: “This is excellent. I’ve already started implementing what I’m learning about financial management and about teamwork, that you can change a whole negative situation to a positive one depending on what you do as a team. The other women on the course are also saying they are learning skills that they didn’t know about.”
The block course began in June. It consists of coursework and one examination in October. Block one is on personal and team effectiveness: communication skills, conflict management, time management, analytical and critical reading and writing, and effective presentations, among other issues, are taught.
In block two the emphasis is on strategic and operational management, where project and quality management, as well as organisational development and change are among the topics. Resource, financial and people management together with labour relations is the focus of block three.
The elective and applied project takes place in block four. This block also consists of the topics education and management, women in management and diversity management and training.
The women are also required to produce an applied project report of 20 pages. The project aims at integrating theory and practice: participants are required to identify a management problem within their institution and develop an intervention strategy to address the problem.
The programme is accredited as a certificate course in public management. The successful completion of the certificate course could enable participants to pursue their studies by enrolling for the postgraduate diploma in public and development management.
Dr Cyril Samuel, unit head of policy and planning in the Johannesburg West district of the Gauteng Department of Education, says the course is extremely valuable but there need to be “follow-ups, mentoring, co-ordination and evaluation”, so the training is sustained.
He says gender equity is now being taken seriously in education broadly. An example of this, for him, is the national Department of Education’s Girl Learner Programme. Through this intervention girls are encouraged to forge ahead in maths, science, technology, accountancy, business and leadership fields.
“This is one of the strategies now in place to give girl learners and women a better chance in the labour market,” says Samuel.
Programme facilitator Penny Law, a director of Regenesys, says: “This is an opportunity for women to develop skills and knowledge, and to balance the gender representation of women in management positions.” The course will give women the space to explore and develop themselves without the influence of the external environment “suppressing” them or breaking down their confidence, she says.
“Women bring in a different energy when managing. This is important, especially in a male-dominated environment. Trained women managers will exert a great deal of influence and change, now and in the future,” Law says.