WHAT ARE THE FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE FEMALE DIRECTORSHIP

IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS?

A DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH STUDY IN TURKISH UNIVERSITIES

INTRODUCTION
Education is a crucial indicator of women’s position in a society. Education level and work
experience are most prominent factors for determining the status of men and women both. As
indicated by Hulton and Rose (2001), training, particularly for females, is altogether associated
with further developed wellbeing just as lower fruitfulness, baby mortality, and grimness rates.
Training, as per them, may empower ladies to assume significant parts in dynamic inside the
home, local area, and society on the loose. Bradley (1988) perceived social and strict convictions
as effects on female instruction. She tracked down that in Arab nations, social and strict shows
prompted tight sex isolation at school and work, with females instructed in single-sex schools by
female instructors and restricted to an educational program that esteemed home financial aspects
over science and arithmetic. As indicated by her, this didn't instruct females for full and
equivalent cooperation in the labor force, restricting their expert choices. Bradley (1988)
likewise found that parental consideration and support play a critical part in the maintenance of
females in school. In customary networks, guardians have insignificant professional assumptions
for their girls and frequently believe schooling to be risky for ladies.

Comparative examinations he acted in Syria tracked down that most of guardians needed their
girls to be housewives or needle workers. As per Eagly (1987), anticipation is a basic part of the
socialization cycle. That is, people act as per social assumptions regarding their sex job, and the
suspicion that ladies would be more caring and relationship-arranged than guys considerably
clarify for contrasts in administration techniques dependent on sexual orientation. The detriment
of this cycle, from a female perspective, is that the possibility of ladies as sustaining may prompt
a legitimization of ladies doing supporting jobs, while guys customarily take administration
obligations. Notwithstanding the way that ladies frequently hold lower jobs, they make critical
commitments to country improvement. They are the establishment of society and, similar to their
male partners, have the characteristics and fitness to productively execute administration
obligations and obligations. The commitment of ladies to the headway of various spaces of
human undertaking couldn't possibly be more significant. Since forever, ladies have made
gigantic commitments to their nations' endurance and success. For instance, during Ghana's pre-
autonomy period, Nana Yaa Asantewaa, the sovereign mother of Ejisu, remained steadfast to
shield her kin's freedoms. Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom and Indira Ghandi of India
took over as Prime Ministers of their particular nations. Sovereign Elizabeth II of England is the
most recognized and longest-serving sovereign throughout the entire existence of worldwide
administration. A lot more ladies have taken up influential positions lately. Ladies have restricted
places of authority inside the United Nations (UN) framework. In 1993, for instance, only six of
the 179-part countries were driven by ladies (Spectator: February 13, 1993). There were only six
ladies among the 184 Ambassadors in 1995, and seven by mid-1997. What's more, only four of
the 32 UN specific organizations were driven by ladies (Ghanaian Times: August 10, 1995). In
Ghana, Justice Bamford-Addo, a previous Speaker of Parliament, Madam Elizabeth Villars, a
business person and software engineer, and the current Chief Justice, Mrs. Justice Georgina
Woode, are a couple of eminent occurrences of ladies with extraordinary initiative notorieties.
Notwithstanding the achievements of various ladies from the beginning of time, both old and
present day, ladies keep on following guys in positions of authority in an assortment of human
undertakings. In spite of representing 51.04 percent of the country's general populace, ladies hold
only a couple of significant positions of authority in Ghana's political scene (Ghana Statistical
Service, 2002). Since the beginning of participatory popular government, the sex cosmetics of
Ghana's parliament has been consistently male-overwhelmed. In 1994, only 348 of the 12,869
Assemblymen/ladies were ladies, showing an absence of female portrayal. The situation is
comparative in the instructive area. Ladies make up a little level of instructive foundation
managers in Ghana. A couple of ladies stand firm on high level chief footings in the Ghana
Education Service (GES). Ladies prevail as teachers in nursery and grade schools, with only a
couple of exemptions filling in as directors. A couple of ladies fill in as heads at the Junior High
School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) levels. The circumstance is comparative in
universities of training and polytechnics, where female chiefs are almost non-existent in contrast
with their male associates. Therefore, the quantity of female directors at instructive
establishments all through the nation is somewhat low when contrasted with their male partners
in the educating region. However, the circumstance is quickly improving as more females get
advanced education, there is as yet a sex dissimilarity in top posts in the Service. For instance, as
per public information from 1999, there were 43 ladies takes off of 438 SHS heads. Just eight of
the 38 Principals at the Colleges of Education were female. Moreover, only 52 of the 153
Directors working in different assignments, from base camp to area workplaces around the
nation, were female (GES, 1999). The main female Director General from the association's
initiation in 1974 till now was in December 2002.

The current study is aiming to explore the role of female directors in the Turkish universities.
The objective of the study is to explore the challenges faced by female directors in Turkish
universities.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is believed that traditional and cultural practices strongly against the female leadership in
educational institutes. Mainly those seats have specially reserved for males only. But trends are
changing in current world. Women got the higher ranks in educational institutes. However,
women are still facing challenges for being a director of an educational department. Researcher
wants to reveal those challenges and significant roles of female director of Turkish University
departments.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions are as follow:

1. What is female faculty ratio in Turkish universities?

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Following are the main research objectives:

 To explore the female faculty ratios in Turkish universities.

MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH

Empirical evidence revealed investment in human capital as a major factor that holds great
importance in a country’s economic growth. Education has surfaced as a major hurdle in
development of people as individual in the society. Therefore, focus has been diverted to
improving literacy rate and making individuals skilful which will lead to productivity within a
society. Studies have revealed that higher level of education is expected to increase the chances
of high incomes and quality jobs. Income disparity is observed in many organizations, but the
phenomenon is not well researched. Though it holds empirical evidence, it is negated by some
scholars. However, a fact stays that mostly research have been done in western world’s context
including the developed countries or in service sector including health, police, and banking
departments. Scarcity of the studies on women directorship in educational departments is the
motivation behind of this study.

INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES

Based on the research objectives and hypothesis, the theoretical model developed includes
female directorship and work experience as independent variables whereas, Performance of
department is taken as dependent variable. The theoretical model and the relationships of
variables are depicted in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 is depicting the possible relationships between the independent and dependent
variables i.e., female Directorship, work experience, Performance of Department.

Female
Directorship

Performance of
University
Department

Work
experience
 Figure 1.1: Theoretical Model
METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The research design will be a descriptive survey which is a type of qualitative study. According
to Merriam (1998), the objective of descriptive research design is to understanding the
phenomenon of the motives of participants not the researcher. In the present study, it is assumed
that there is invisibility of information on challenges of female directors, facing in the
educational department and it would be possible to generate the important information with this
type of study. It is expected that collected data through this descriptive survey will provide
relevant information on the topic of this study. With this research. Research will conduct the
interviews from faculty members of the targeted university and also collect the data from the
website of the universities and open-ended source.

Sample and Sampling Strategy

Convenience sampling technique will be used to collect the data randomly from private
universities of Istanbul turkey. Female faculty members and directors will be targeted as
Population of the study.

Data Collection Procedure

The data will be collected from websites and open sources. The participants will be briefed about
the purpose of the study ensuring them confidentiality.

Data Analysis

The data will be analysis by doing discussions on the available data with past conducted studies
relevant with current research study.

Expected Results

Although, the data collected might reject the hypothesis. The expected outcome of this research
is an evident relationship among female directorship, work experience, and performance of
university department. In accordance with the existing literature, higher work experience will
have direct relationship with performance of the department. Gender discrimination does not
affect the performance of the educational department.

Timeframe to Complete Research Thesis

It will take 4-6 months to complete the whole thesis.

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