{"id":65774,"date":"2025-12-28T16:32:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/girls-thrive-with-women-teachers-in-francophone-africa"},"modified":"2025-12-28T16:41:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:41:51","slug":"girls-thrive-with-women-teachers-in-francophone-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/girls-thrive-with-women-teachers-in-francophone-africa","title":{"rendered":"Girls Thrive With Women Teachers in Francophone Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong> <\/span>OVER the past few decades most advanced countries have witnessed two striking reversals of the gender gap. First, teaching has become a profession dominated by women.<\/p>\n

This is particularly true at primary school level, where 84.5% of teachers across all countries classified as \u201cdeveloped\u201d by UNESCO are women.<\/p>\n

The second reversal has been among pupils. Girls now outperform boys in almost every educational outcome across the board \u2013 they do better in terms of enrolment, achievement and graduation rate.<\/p>\n

These changes have been achieved in several ways. When a country is in the early stages of development, there tends to be a gender gap in educational investment that favours boys.<\/p>\n

And the teaching profession in such countries is usually dominated by men.<\/p>\n

But as countries develop and incomes rise, spending becomes more balanced and girls are able to close to even entirely reverse the gender gaps in schooling and teaching.<\/p>\n

Such shifts are starting to occur in many developing countries.<\/p>\n

But sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in its western and central regions, is lagging behind.<\/p>\n

Women teachers are still in the minority in countries like Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal and Togo.<\/p>\n

And, we discovered, this has implications for how teachers\u2019 gender influences student learning performance.<\/p>\n

Our study found that girls in the sixth grade \u2013 so on average around 13 years old \u2013 performed better on standardised tests in reading and maths when they are taught by women than when they are taught by men.<\/p>\n

This also has implications for how girls perform at school compared to boys. Girls outperformed boys on the subjects under women teachers.<\/p>\n

We found no evidence that boys\u2019 performance changed in maths whether their teachers were men or women.<\/p>\n

And in reading, boys performed a little better under female teachers than they did with male teachers. These findings echo similar studies elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n

They suggest that female teachers can act as role models who enhance girls\u2019 motivation and learning outcomes.<\/p>\n

The countries in our study \u2013 and others \u2013 should work harder to ensure gender parity when hiring teachers.<\/p>\n

This can empower girls and improve their results. Measuring performance We analysed the standardised test scores of more than 31,000 primary school pupils in 1,800 primary schools in the Francophone nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal and Togo.<\/p>\n

In 2015, only 36.9% of primary teachers in these countries were female.<\/p>\n

We decided to focus on test scores, which are graded by external evaluators, as they\u2019re an objective measure of achievement.<\/p>\n

This means they provide the best evidence of how teachers\u2019 gender affects \u2013 or doesn\u2019t \u2013 pupils\u2019 results.<\/p>\n

In addition to the data analysis, we asked pupils to report back about whether they enjoyed a subject more or less when it was taught by a teacher of the same gender.<\/p>\n

So, for instance, did girls enjoy maths more with a woman teacher? The answer was \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Girls preferred being taught by women and their results reflected this.<\/p>\n

Role models Teachers are important figures when it comes to students\u2019 gender-related attitudes towards different school subjects.<\/p>\n

Along with parents, teachers determine the extent to which traditional academic stereotypes such as \u201cboys are good at maths and girls are good at reading\u201d are passed on to future generations.<\/p>\n

Our research found that such stereotypes remain widespread in Francophone Africa \u2013 even among teachers themselves.<\/p>\n

Teachers\u2019 perceptions of the relative average performance of girls versus boys in their classes often differed entirely from the reality.<\/p>\n

In particular, both male and female teachers frequently overestimate boys\u2019 maths performance.<\/p>\n

But these perceptions don\u2019t hold girls back from outperforming boys in maths.<\/p>\n

This suggests that female teachers\u2019 presence \u2013 and the roles they model simply by being maths teachers \u2013 inspires girls, makes them more motivated to do well and improves their results.<\/p>\n

Based on our findings, we\u2019d suggest that policies should be developed specifically to improve gender balance in teaching in the countries we studied.<\/p>\n

Hiring more female teachers can contribute to closing educational gender gaps without hurting boys\u2019 performance.<\/p>\n

Source: <\/b><\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n

Find more news and analyses on Lesotho<\/span> on the Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. OVER the past few decades most advanced countries have witnessed two striking reversals of the gender gap. First, teaching has become a profession dominated by women. This is particularly true at primary school level, where 84.5% of teachers across all countries classified as \u201cdeveloped\u201d by UNESCO are women. The second reversal has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":65773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-65774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nGirls Thrive With Women Teachers in Francophone Africa - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag"> Africa-Press - Lesotho. 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