Training for placing women in executive ranks in the pipeline

LYDIA SHEKIGHENDA

THE Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) in collaboration with the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI), is set to provide training to female employees on managerial skills using its own experts, following a successful implementation of its first programme.

The courses under the Female Future Programme, are aimed at strengthening women’s capacity to manage executive positions as effort towards promoting gender equality in the workplace.

ATE’s Coordinator of the Female Future Programme, Lilian Machera, told the ‘Daily News’ yesterday that when the programme started last year, her association used experts from the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises (NHO) who also empowered ATE and ESAMI personnel so that they could manage it .

“We are currently proceeding with registration for the next programme which will commence at the end of next month and expect that the course will attract more female employees because it has proved to be beneficial to them,” she said.

Ms Machera said that under the four-year programme, twenty women are expected to be trained each year, but the number increased to 33 during the the first phase.

Introduction of the programme was driven by the poor representation of the group in management decision making, in leadership and board positions. Ms Machere explained that the nine-month programme drew participants from different parts of the country.

She said the programme covered three modules of leadership, rhetoric and board competence which will be linked directly to their daily work routine at their workplaces. The baseline survey conducted in 2015 in 300 companies discovered that a gender gap exist at various levels.

According to the findings, 65 per cent of males are board members while female board mem bers make up to 35 per cent. Chief executive officers/ business owners are 78 per cent male and females are only 22 per cent.

The findings further revealed that males make up 61 per cent heads of functions and female 39 per cent.

Speaking in Dar es Salaam recently, during a ceremony to present certificates to 33 female employees who had completed the ninemonth course, the Minister for Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Prof Joyce Ndalichako, praised the initiative for supporting women with potential for productivity, noting that it motivates them towards becoming senior leaders and board members.