Browsing by Author "Draru, Mary Cecilia"

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    Education pathways: Narratives of female academics and administrators in Ugandan universities
    (2017) Draru, Mary Cecilia
    This PhD project on the education pathways of female academics and administrators in Ugandan universities was conceived during my search for a study pathway in the research field. My initial motivation for undertaking this study was the vast body of literature that painted such a grim picture of children’s educational opportunities in Africa, particularly those pertaining to the girl child. Often, the disadvantaging of girls in Africa was linked to discriminatory cultural practices in the family that led to girls’ inability to access school, or to their dropping out of the education system altogether. My question was, why did my own story and the educational success stories of other ‘few’ African women never seem to see the light of day? The few women highlighted, especially by the media, are, I discovered, mostly in the political sector. My own experience as an Executive Secretary, Associate Director, and as a lecturer at Uganda Martyrs University showed that quite a number of women accessed academic and senior administrative positions in the university, and yet these stories never got beyond the gates of the institution. I also realised that, although the number of women in top management positions of the university was constantly diminishing, at the lower administrative and academic levels, the numbers were increasing. The very presence of women in such academic and administrative positions implied that, in spite of challenges to accessing and completing education, some women are able to navigate successfully through Uganda’s education system. This success led me to conclude that there were more women completing the education cycle and accessing jobs at the university than could be deduced from the grim picture that was assumed to be the norm in Africa.