Different Pathways into Teaching and Challenges for Female Teachers in Rural Pakistan

• In Event: Complexities and challenges facing teachers in Georgia, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Proposal

Different Pathways into Teaching and Challenges for Female Teachers in Rural Pakistan

Teacher shortage, uneven deployment, inadequate professional development and difficult working conditions in rural and remote schools, remain key issues in developing countries. In order to achieve SDG 4, the UIS estimates that by 2030, the world needs almost 69 million new teachers.
This research study aims to explore the different pathways into teaching in rural primary and middle schools, using qualitative, multiple case study methods. The study explores in-depth perceptions and real-life experiences of male and female teachers in different types of schools.
As a conceptual framework, the continuum of teacher learning and occupational choice theory were used to study teacher preparation and recruitment. Research participants included twelve teachers (seven male and five female) from four different types of schools. Each participant (teacher) was a case and the schools were mainly work sites where teachers were interviewed. The schools selected for data collection were located in a remote mountain village of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province, where 86 percent of the total population live in rural areas.

The findings of this study problematize teacher policy and practice. Entry into the teaching profession is generally assumed to be a simplistic process. However, this study yielded new insights and revealed that the real-life experiences of teachers varied and were more complex, with multiple factors influencing teachers’ entry into teaching. Wide disparities were found between and among male and female teachers’ working conditions and pay, and female teachers were particularly disadvantaged. Another important gender issue for teachers is that more male teachers have government high-paid permanent teaching contracts, compared to female teachers with low-paid temporary contracts. A female community teacher reported a salary which was 17 times less than the average salary for a government male teacher and nearly 10 times less than a government female teacher with the same workload at the same school. Female community teachers were waiting for the outstanding salary for nearly one year. The wide disparity in pay and working conditions is reproducing social/gender stratifications and expanding income disparities in a relatively egalitarian local community. Female teachers of Basic Education Community School had joined at least two strikes and protest actions demanding a pay raise, timely payment of salaries and regularization of jobs, but their demands remain unaddressed for the last two decades.

The findings in this study provide justification for the government to continue recruiting more female teachers until at least an equal proportion of government permanent jobs are held by women in rural schools of Pakistan. This study will be useful for government, teacher associations/unions, donors and civil society organizations engaged in teacher policy, preparation and recruitment in Pakistan and in other developing countries. Future research is needed to explore the institutional perspectives on teacher preparation and recruitment. Also, more in-depth research is needed to further unravel barriers for female teachers and explore ways to remove those barriers for recruiting more female teachers in rural government schools.

Author

• Nooruddin Shah