Gender inequities in school teaching: reasons and repercussions

Through much of the 20th and 21st centuries in India, women entered the teaching profession in fairly significant numbers. There are many reasons for this. At the level of government policy it was decided that to increase enrolment of girls in school there should ideally be at least one female teacher in every primary school. To further this goal, many teacher training centres were set up exclusively for women and female teachers were given incentives to work in remote areas (Manjrekar, 2013). In addition to government policies, societal beliefs and practices have also tended to support the entry of women into teaching. Amongst the middle classes, teaching is viewed as a suitable profession for women because it is seen to be less demanding, (having shorter hours than many other jobs) and therefore compatible with household and childcare responsibilities. During my own career as a school teacher, I was often complimented on my choice of profession as an ‘ideal job for a woman’