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INFLUENCE OF HOUSEHOLD TASKS ON THE JOB PERFORMANCE OF FEMALE TEACHERS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Household activities have been theorized as among the impediment to girls’ concentration in school activities and performing well in their studies. Household activities in Africa are normally performed by female members of the family, while those related to outdoors are performed by male members of the family. While this separation of activity may seem fair, in actual fact, household activities are unscheduled and therefore, more time consuming and tiring than those performed outside the house. Outdoor activities are normally scheduled.

Educators and researchers have long been interested in exploring the influence of household activities on girls academic perfomance. This household activities may be termed as gendered roles (Swai, 2010). Gendered roles are those activities that have been socially constructed and culturally accepted as belonging to females and males, which can sometime be termed as feminine and masculine activities. The formal investigation about gender role and female academic performance has been a hot debate in Tanzania.

A study by Meena (1996) reports that girls experiences difficulties in gaining access to secondary level education due to gender roles in their families. Meena observes that while Tanzania at one point seemed to have overcome problems of a gender gap at primary school level, have had problems of accessing girls and retaining them at secondary level. The gross secondary enrolment gender ratio in Tanzania is 0.75 which is suggestive of lower access for females at this level. It is estimated that the gross secondary school enrolment gender ratio is 0.50 despite a primary completion ratio of 0.81. Statistics indicate that fewer girls complete secondary school level than boys with a completion ratio of 0.64. This condition is worsened at tertiary level with a gross enrolment gender ratio of 0.22. In sciences and technological subjects, the proportion of girls to boys is even smaller.

Gender role has been found as impediment to female access and performance in secondary schools in other countries. A study conducted in 1988, which covered 20 countries, indicated that females were a minority in all levels of higher learning and mainly concentrated in art related streams. The data indicated that Ethiopia, had during that particular period a total of 16000 students at tertiary level of which females were 3520 or 22%and males were 12480 or 78% respectively (Meena, 1996).

Despite the impediment of gender role to female access to and performance in secondary and higher education, society continue to socialise children into gender roles. The influence of gender roles and academic performance can be measured in a number of different ways. It is most often calculated by looking at the time used to perform those roles. The more time consuming and physical demand, the more it takes the individual from performing other activities such as academic activities. Removal of one from performing academic activities has positive correlations with the student’s quality of achievement. Logically, those students who spend more time in activities other than academic perform worse than those who spend more time in academic activities, and these are mostly girls.

Education is a liberating tool without which it might be difficult to realize both the National 2025 and Millennium goals. In the recent decades, meaningful education would be one that provides equal opportunities to both males and females. However, in almost all the countries, there is gender disparity in all aspects of the provision of education (UNESCO, 2004). In developing countries, and Africa in particular, women have limited time to access education, and this can be attributed to their gendered roles. Studies indicate that until the turn of the last century only a small percentage of girls received formal education at secondary and post-secondary levels in Africa (Adams and Kruppenbach, 1987; Nafziger, 1988: Bogonko, 1992). This trend is contrary to the global efforts of expanding women’s and girls’ participation in social, political and economic affairs that might lead them to holding higher administrative posts as enshrined in the Beijing Platform. 

Consequently, Tanzania like other developing countries has embarked on various measures to improve girls’ access to education opportunities particularly at secondary school level. The government’s initiatives to increase girls’ access to secondary education in Tanzania involved introduction of a quota system, opening up of secondary schools, establishing girls’ day streams within the existing public schools, and the introduction of special projects for supporting girls’ education.

Through these initiatives, girls were selected to join form one according to the scores among themselves. Consequently, girls who scored much lower than boys in their primary school leaving examination were admitted into public secondary schools. Omari (1995) reports that, to increase access for girls into the secondary level, quota policies have been used. This usually involves reserving a certain percentage of school places for girls and selecting girls with lower aggregate scores than boys.

Another effort of improving girls’ enrolment in secondary schools included the opening up of co-education day secondary schools in what had previously been boys’ secondary schools (Malekela, 2000). 

1.2 Statement of the Problem

While the government of Tanzania has initiated various programmes as part of efforts to improve gender equality in access to secondary education, girls have continued to perform worse than their counterpart boys. Further, while scholars have tried to find the root cause of girls’ low position in academic performance, many have attributed this with social and cultural factors. The concepts such as cultural and social factors are too abstract to comprehend and change. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature. It will assess ways in which household activities have effects on female teacher’s job performance. 

1.3 Purpose and Objectives of the Study

The purpose of this study was to explore girls’ participation in household task and its impact on the job performance of female teacher. Specifically, the study will intend to achieve the following objectives:

i). To explore the types of household chores and time on which the activities are performed by ladies.

ii).      To assess job performance of female teachers in schools.         

iii). To determine the extent to which the time spent in household chores affect female job performance.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

To what extent do female teacher participate in household chores?

What is the job performance of female teachers?

To what extent does the time spent in household chores affect female teacher job performance?

1.5 Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will expect to inform educational planners, administrators and policy makers on the influence of household chores on female teacher job performance so as to take appropriate measures to redress the situation. The findings might also be used by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the government at large to evaluate the ongoing SEDP initiatives in terms of its achievements in providing quality secondary education. Moreover, the findings will be expected to add knowledge to the existing body of literature on the influence of household chores on female teachers’ performance. In addition, it will hope that the findings would contribute towards further research undertakings on female teacher job performance in the education industry.

1.6 Limitations of the study

The demanding schedule of respondents at work made it very difficult getting the respondents to participate in the survey. As a result, retrieving copies of questionnaire in timely fashion was very challenging. Also, the researcher is a student and therefore has limited time as well as resources in covering extensive literature available in conducting this research. Information provided by the researcher may not hold true for all businesses or organizations but is restricted to the selected organization used as a study in this research especially in the locality where this study is being conducted. Finally, the researcher is restricted only to the evidence provided by the participants in the research and therefore cannot determine the reliability and accuracy of the information provided.

Financial constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint: The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.7 Definition of Key Terms

Household: In this study the term household refers to a collective group of individuals unified by commonly held factor of belonging and identity in which individual members have right and entitlements in which parents or guardians assume leadership roles.

Household Chores: In this study household chore refers to the duties or pieces of work that are done in a home, garden or on a farm beyond one’s own self maintenance.  

Job Performance: In this study, Job performance is a means to reach a goal or set of goals within a job, role, or organization (Campbell, 1990), but not the actual consequences of the acts performed within a job.

Summary of the chapter and overview of the study: This study was designed to investigate the type and extents of household chores performed by girls and participation in household chores influenced female teachers job performance in school. The introduction chapter starts with research question and set them in context. The succeeding chapter presents the review of the Literature (chapter two).  Chapter three present the methodology of the study chapter.

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