ABSTRACT
To assess the levels of concern, awareness, and response regarding the presence and role of women teachers in African schools required extensive data gathering with the participation of multiple stakeholders - ranging from education authorities, current and future teachers, and faculty members in teacher-training programs, to staff members from national NGOs and international organizations. The teaching profession offers the benefits of job stability, summer vacations, religious holidays, medical insurance, and pensions. Student teachers, by and large, know about the low teaching salaries, but they seem to know less about rural conditions. Some deterrents affect teachers in general; others affect women teachers in particular. Child-rearing, household management, domestic chores and elder care, affect women's availability for teaching and even more so their availability for administrative responsibilities in schools. Schools behave ostensibly as gender-neutral institutions, which in practice mean that the demanding private sphere of women teachers is not recognized as a socially evident domain that intersects disproportionately with professional practices.
