Women in educational leadership: empowerment and challenges in higher education of Nepal

This research explores existing empowerment practices and challenges of women leadershipin Nepal. Four key objectives have been developed: to find out about women's experiences asleader in HE institutions; to investigate women's perceptions of gender equality in educationalleadership; to critically evaluate the main factors/barriers that prevent women from takingleadership roles; and to offer recommendations to increase women’s participation in leadershippositions.This research adopts Interpretivism epistemology, subjective ontology, inductive reasoningand qualitative research methods. Similarly, data is collected from 20 women leaders currentlyworking in higher education institutes in Nepal and analysed using a thematic analysing withthe help of NVivo software. The participants were selected using non-probability purposivesampling technique. 16 pre-planned questions followed by probing questions as necessary wereasked to every interviewee to obtain in-depth information on the subject. All the participantswere interviewed face to face using semi-structure format to get in-depth data for the research.The study found that women had not any dreams to be a leader and had not achieved theleadership position as a result of a well-planned career trajectory and had largely achieved theirpositions by chance. According to most of the interviewees, the women perceived that theirmale colleagues were jealous and found it uncomfortable in working under female leadership.The female respondents have more home responsibilities and explain that it made them moredifficult to fulfil their leadership roles. They felt that Nepalese society does not believe inwomen leadership and that women have to prove their ability in practice to gain acceptance.Similarly, there was a lack of role model for women to follow and due to burden of domesticresponsibilities women were finding less time for training, studying and building informalnetwork with others co-female leaders.Various organizations continuously working to increase social awareness, gender equality andto give women more opportunities but these efforts are inadequate to increase the number ofwomen in higher education leadership positions in Nepal. The culture has been perpetuallychanging and women are being much more aware of their rights compared to the past but theshadow of patriarchal culture has not been completely eradicated yet. To resolve this problemmore social awareness programmes and women education should be focused on.Despite some limitations this study has managed to give some useful contributions toknowledge and practice. Very few research has been published in women leadership in thecontext of Nepal and it is obvious that still many studies needed on societal issues beforeaddressing leadership effectively. In practice, various stake holders such as women, society,organisation and government can reference the findings and make changes to improve thesituations of women leadership in Higher Education