Generally teachers’ gender, subject, promotion and pay are crucial aspects of gender regime acknowledged in this chapter. The data generated from the case study schools showed that teaching is a gendered profession. According to Gaskell and Mullen (2006) teaching, like all occupations, has been organised, changed and framed by gender. Gaskell and Mullen argue that teaching has been organised in a way that associates the one women do with low status and income, while the one men do garners more power and esteem. According to Gaskell and Mullen, women are more likely than men to teach younger children, to be in fields associated with women’s work, and to have positions with little power or intellectual authority. Although changes have taken place in the number and kinds of teaching jobs which
are available, and the global expansion of formal teaching jobs has opened opportunities for many women, yet Gaskell and Mullen (2006) argue that teaching jobs have been continually reorganised and redefined so that women remain in low status positions relative to men. These authors further argue that this might be as a result of the discrimination in sex roles in some cultures that usually influenced the status accorded to male and female teachers. Generally, female dominance of teaching profession is a global issue. In many parts of the world, teaching is one of the most common occupations for women, making it critical for understanding women’s status in any society (Anker, 1998; Gaskell and Mullen, 2006). In a study of forty one countries, teaching ranks as one of the top nine typically ‘feminine’ occupations (Anker, 1998; Gaskell and Mullen, 2006). In Canada, elementary teaching is the fifth leading occupation for women while in USA, it is the sixth for women (Padavic and Reskin, 2002; Seidlikoski, 2001). In addition, teaching around the world has become a more feminised occupation over the past two decades (Anker, 1998; Guppy and Davies, 1998).
In Nigeria, the national statistics revealed sharp differences between male and female teachers’ employment profiles (National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). For example, between 2001 and 2006, the proportion of female teachers employed in Nigerian primary schools by the government and other private proprietors was about 52 percent while that of the male teachers was about 48 percent (National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). At the secondary school level, the proportion of female teachers recruited by government and other employers was 61 percent as against that of the male teachers which was about 39 percent (National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). In this study, there were more female teachers than their male counterparts in the schools studied. For example, there were more female teachers in the urban high schools than male teachers. However, the latter dominated the teaching of sciences, mathematics and technical subjects while the female teachers dominated the teaching of English Language, Home Economics, Christian Religious Knowledge and other arts courses.
There was also inequity in the salaries paid to male teachers and that of their female counterparts across the schools surveyed. In general, they were paid higher salaries than their female counterparts. This was so because many female teachers were employed by the individual school Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) organisation while many male teachers were employed by the government departments. Indeed, the government teachers were paid higher salaries than those paid by the PTA committees of the case study schools. However, I discovered that
the differences between female teachers’ salaries and that of their male counterparts in the schools were in terms of allowances paid to government teachers but the basic pay was the same. Indeed, those allowances were big money and the PTA teachers and indeed the female teachers needed to be paid those allowances too. This implies that men more than women were in position of financial power in the schools surveyed. Moreover, some female teachers were working on part time basis whereas most male teachers were working on full time basis. According to the two female teachers in involved in the study, part time appointment helped them to combine paid work with their unpaid domestic tasks even though such unpaid household labour tended to be socially and statistically invisible in Nigeria.
I also came to know that the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) played a role in the recruitment of more female teachers than male teachers in the case study schools. Generally, PTA was set up to serve as a link between the school and the community. It promotes teaching and learning in schools by recruiting PTA teachers and enrolment and attendance of students. The table in section 5.2.3 shows the number of male and female teachers employed by PTAs across the case study schools. From that table, it is clear that the PTA employed a total of 19 male teachers and 40 female teachers in the four case study schools. Indeed, the PTA helps to do everything within its powers for the support of the school. For example, it helps to raise funds for various projects in the schools by levying parents. The schools also depend so much on PTA’s development levy for the funding of repairs, renovation and construction of new buildings. In fact it seems there is no way that the Nigerian school principals could survive without the support of the parent- teacher associations.
Culturally, since in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Nigerian women had been accorded a lower status than men in various occupations including teaching. This is because in the Nigerian dominant culture, not much priority was accorded women education although the place of maternity, usually full time, had often been treated with much respect. According to NCCE (2003) given this background, many Nigerian women have not been found in highly paid jobs but in low-paying teaching positions and primary and pre-primary education have a high number of female workers (NCCE, 2003). In fact as the level of education gets higher, the number of female teachers and consequently, it suggests to me that there is an inverse proportion of female teachers to the levels of education programme in Nigeria.
However, the female teachers at the case study schools said that they became teachers for various reasons; teaching provided them with a salary. Therefore, they joined the teaching profession so that they could support themselves or contribute to the support of others for a variety of reasons: They needed money, their families needed money, or they wanted financial remuneration in order to become independent. Another reason why they entered the teaching profession was reward of service as it could provide moral rewards as well as educational and intellectual motivation. Indeed, the teaching profession in the case study schools provided women with opportunities to work outside their domestic domain. Consequently, these teachers stand at the juncture of nurturing and sending out, preparing students to go from the private to the public world. According to Gimba (1996) female teachers serve as transmitters of dominant cultural norms rather than cultural transformers, while they find themselves caught in the contradiction of perpetuating their own oppression.
There was over-representation of female teachers in the case study schools with the exception of Pascal and Bingo High Schools and some of them were employed by the appropriate government agency while many others were recruited by the PTA Associations. Indeed, the male teachers received higher salaries than what were paid to female teachers doing the same job as the male teachers and having similar qualifications and experiences. In the four case study schools, the salaries of male teachers who were recruited by the appropriate government agencies whether at the state or at the federal level were much higher than those of the female teachers who were recruited by PTAs in the case study schools. Similarly, the teachers working with federal government owned schools and colleges received higher salaries than those working with state owned institutions, even though there were no federal schools in my study. For example, I and my wife graduated the same year from the University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria. Both of us served the nation for one year in the National Youth Service Scheme. At the end of that programme, we both picked up appointments; I in a federal government teacher’s college while my wife in a private secondary school. The pay gap between what I am paid and what my wife is paid is in the ratio of 1:10. In support of this, NCCE (2003) points out that women teachers directly and indirectly have been victims of gender discrimination in matters such as remuneration, deployment and welfare benefits, like housing allowances. Generally, many female teachers earn less overall than men in Nigeria. In fact, teaching conditions are often poorer for some female teachers than male teachers, especially in rural areas, and such conditions often
worked more heavily against female teachers because of inequitable practices which inhibit effective teaching. Some of the VBE female teachers in the case study schools have similar experiences. For example, in an informal interview with one of the female PTA economics teacher in Mary Monk High School, she told me that the salaries of government teachers in that school differ sharply from what she was being paid. This is how she put it:
Researcher: As a PTA teacher, what’s your pay like?
Mrs Disemi: Well, my pay is far lower than that of government teachers (MTF).
Researcher: Please can you tell me why that is so?
Mrs Disemi: It’s because I am not paid certain allowances such as housing and transport that they are paid (MTF)
As earlier mentioned, one of the reasons for differences in salaries between the male and female teachers was part time employment. This was reported by another female VBE teacher in Bingo High School and this was how she reported it:
Researcher: I was told that by a teacher somewhere that your salaries differ. Is that applicable to you?
Mrs Raphael: Oh yes, it is (BTF). Researcher: Please why?
Mrs Raphael: Because I work on part time basis. So I’ m paid according to the hours I worked (BTF).
The government also limits female women teachers’ access to administrative positions through policies that tended to favour male teachers only. Even though three quarters of the school principals were females in the case study schools, yet, overwhelmingly it is men who control the policy-making bodies that are put in charge to oversee what happens in the Nigerian senior secondary schools. Thus, women teachers lacked equal opportunity across all the case study schools to obtain senior teaching and management positions. However, the three female school principals in the case study schools were wives of ‘big’ time education administrators who control the Inspectorate Division in the Ministry of Education in the State. As for the school principal in the rural secondary schools, the situation was reversed as the only male principal had two deputies who were all females. By and large teachers in the Nigerian senior secondary schools are mostly females while administrators were predominately males (National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). In agreement with this, the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE, 2003) points out that
female teachers were generally under-represented in management and senior positions in schools and in the Ministry of Education.
I feel that the gender regime theory in conjunction with the other two theories will be used in describing, explaining and illuminating the chapters on the findings and discussions of the study in the following order. In chapter 6, the ideas about gender that the VBE teachers and students brought to their Commerce and Economics classroom interactions will be explored while in chapter 7, gender dimensions in the informal and formal curriculum will be highlighted. Chapter 8 discusses gendered VBE classroom interactions while the VBE teachers’ and students’ gendered perceptions about business labour market are explored in chapter 9.
5.4 Summary
This chapter discusses the schools’ gender regime in the four coeducational senior secondary schools in Nigeria where the data for the study was generated. It highlights the case study school context describing school location, school catchment area occupations, number of students and teachers, physical conditions, and curriculum options. The chapter further explains the summary of the similarities and the differences in the gender regimes and class environment across all the case study schools. It also explores the employment of teachers by gender, subject and pay. The chapter headings to be elaborated, expanded and discussed in chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 were listed.