Determinants of Female Participation in Leadership Position in Secondary Education in Ethiopia's West Arsi Zone

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of female leadership involvement among secondary school teachers in West Arsi Zone, with a focus on the imperative problem of gender imbalance in educational leadership. Through a mixed-methods approach, information was collected from a sample of 165 teachers across five woredas. The research employed a combination of questionnaire surveys and interviews to collect comprehensive information. The findings insights a large gender gap, with women holding only 8.4% of secondary school leadership posts. The main barriers found are socio-cultural, for example, traditional gender roles and responsibilities to the family, which significantly undermine women's confidence in their leadership capacity. Institutional barriers, such as a lack of facilitative policies, mentorship programs, and gender-sensitive selection methods, also limit women's mobility into leadership. Individual factors, for example, self-efficacy and career aspirations, were also found to have a noticeably large influence on female teachers' motivation to aspire to leadership. This follows from the study that systemic barriers present enormous hindrances to the participation of women teachers in leadership in the West Arsi Zone. To promote female teachers in leadership, schools and policy maker must enact specific regulations, such as mentorship programs and gender-sensitive hiring practices.