• Teklebrhan Gebremeskel Beyene
• Prof. Nimma Venkata Rao

Women make up just half of the Ethiopian population, yet continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions. Though their representation is low, current updated studies that show Ethiopian women’s share in academic leadership positions of universities are scarce. Thus, this study sought to investigate the statuses of females’ representations in the academic leadership of Ethiopia’s’ universities. For this purpose, five public universities namely, Adigrat University, Mekelle University, Aksum University, Weldya University, and Samara University were purposively selected. The required data for this study was collected from the human resources management staff profile of the universities through the means of document analysis and from some selected academic leaders and gender office directorates that coordinate and oversee the gender issue in the universities through the means of interview. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Thus, it was found that females remain seriously underrepresented in leadership positions of lower, middle, and higher levels of leadership positions across the universities understudy. This was also true in academic commission and senate representations of decision making. Having observed all these problems, recommendations were suggested to identify and alleviate the genesis of organizational barriers at ground that stifles females’ representation in leadership positions and realize the representation of women in leadership positions as equal as their male counterparts through the proper implementation of gender policy provisions, affirmative actions, gender laws, and regulations.

status, leadership, representation, decision making

"The status of females’ representation in academic leadership positions of selected universities of Ethiopia", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 2, page no.697-706, February-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1902490.pdf

"The status of females’ representation in academic leadership positions of selected universities of Ethiopia", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 2, page no. pp697-706, February-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1902490.pdf