Finding the pathway: Women teachers’ aspirations in northern Pakistan

The research conducted by Aga Khan University aims to discover the challenges faced by female teachers in Northern Pakistan and highlights how female teacher maintain balance between professional life and household duties. Within Northern Pakistan, teaching is identified as an ideal profession for females whereby short school days allows teachers to fulfill their household duties and also perform their teaching job. Females face several challenges including resistance from family members and teaching profession is only adopted by females who are able to strike a balance between professional development and household commitments. In order to reduce their work load and household dependency on cattle, many women contribute a part of their salary towards household expenditure. Male leadership is generally found within schools whereby female leadership is largely resisted and lack of facilities such as childcare and transport prevents females from assuming greater responsibilities. Weekend management committees and location of regional offices far from local vicinity also pose barriers to female professional development and leadership.

The research concludes that importance of female professional development must be emphasized and government-led teacher education program must be introduced in order to increase gender awareness. Meetings and training and should be conducted at locations within local proximity and female teacher networks must be established in order to encourage women to connect with peers in other communities.