Despite advances in girls’ education, the 2025 Global Education Monitoring Report shows that women are still missing from leadership, exposing systemic gender bias in education worldwide.
While access to education for girls has expanded in many parts of the world, leadership roles within education remain mostly in the hands of men. Women make up a large share of the teaching workforce, but they are still missing from decision-making positions that influence policy, resource distribution, and institutional direction. The 2025 Global Education Monitoring Report (Gender Edition) shows that this imbalance continues across regions and education levels.
In 2019, women made up only 16 percent of primary school principals across 14 Francophone African countries. The share was just 10 percent in Guinea and 11 percent in Burkina Faso. In the same year, only 18 percent of Grade 5 students in Cambodia, 25 percent in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and 41 percent in Malaysia were in schools led by women. By contrast, female principals are the majority in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe and across most of Latin America.
At the secondary level, women account for 57 percent of teachers worldwide; however, leadership remains predominantly male-dominated. In 70 countries with available data, there is a 20 percentage point gap between men and women in school leadership roles. In higher education, women make up 45 percent of academic staff globally but only 30 percent of institutional leaders. In Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen, there were no female university presidents in 2018. In Malaysia, only two of the 20 public universities had female vice-chancellors. In Bangladesh, just one of 46 public universities had a woman in that position in 2020.
South Asia shows similar patterns. In India, just 5 percent of vice-chancellors and 2 percent of registrars were women in institutions of national importance in 2021. Across more than 1,200 universities, women held 9 percent of vice-chancellor roles and 11 percent of administrative leadership positions. In Pakistan, gender segregation in schools limits leadership opportunities for women, as they can only apply to lead girls’ schools. In Balochistan, where only 29 percent of schools are for girls, this further narrows access to such roles.
Where women do lead, the results often show positive effects. A study in Pakistan found that female principals tended to use democratic approaches, relying on team input while maintaining clear decision-making authority. Similar observations were reported in Indonesia and the Lao PDR, where female school leaders focused on staff collaboration and support. In the United States, female principals were found to spend more time working with others than their male counterparts. Research from Chile, Türkiye, and Pakistan highlighted the importance of socioemotional skills like empathy and teamwork in effective leadership by women.
However, even qualified women encounter multiple forms of resistance. Cultural ideas about leadership often associate it with male traits, leading to doubts—both implicit and explicit—about whether women can handle high-level responsibilities. Research from Pakistan has shown that both male and female principals considered men better at making important decisions. Such perceptions are reinforced by institutional frameworks and governance structures that give preference to men. Some scholars argue that because teaching is seen as “women’s work,” it is often devalued, allowing men to dominate leadership positions that are viewed as more prestigious. Women who aspire to move beyond the classroom often find themselves having to prove their competence repeatedly, facing limited access to professional development and little community encouragement.
Many women do not have access to mentoring or professional training. In a survey from sub-Saharan Africa, 28 percent of women cited the lack of mentorship, 22 percent mentioned limited networking, and 24 percent pointed to few training opportunities as the main obstacles to advancement.
Bias in hiring is another concern. In the United States, in school districts where women made up 75 percent or more of the school board, nearly half of superintendent positions went to women. Where men dominated school boards, that share dropped to one-third. Globally, only 11 percent of countries have clear policies that promote gender balance in the selection of school leaders.
Gender differences are also visible in digital and civic skills. While 95 women for every 100 men can send an email with an attachment, only 84 can use spreadsheet formulas. In countries like Iran and Switzerland, the gap is larger. But there are a few exceptions: in Thailand and Jamaica, more women than men have certain digital skills. In civic education, girls are more likely to say they will vote in the future, but less likely to see themselves as future political leaders. In a U.S. study, by age twelve, 75 percent of girls drew male figures when asked to imagine a political leader.
The underrepresentation of women continues in higher education governance. In Europe, fewer than one in five university rectors and only 22 percent of leaders at PhD-granting institutions were women as of 2022. In Cyprus and Estonia, there were no female university heads at all. Just 19 percent of senior academic positions in engineering and technology are held by women across Europe. Women are also underrepresented on research and policy boards that help shape national education agendas.
The issue is not about a lack of ambition or capability. Women across the world continue to enter the teaching profession in large numbers, excel in academic performance, and demonstrate leadership potential. Yet, the systems that govern educational institutions—from school boards to ministries—have rarely been structured to recognize or nurture that potential. Discriminatory hiring practices, rigid hierarchies, and informal networks that favor men often block women’s advancement long before they reach the threshold of leadership. These obstacles are not always overt, but their cumulative effect is clear: a persistent exclusion of women from the rooms where decisions are made.
When women are kept out of leadership roles, it is not just a missed opportunity for individual advancement. It also deprives institutions of diverse viewpoints, reduces responsiveness to the needs of women and girls in education, and reinforces patterns of inequality across society. Decisions about curriculum content, resource allocation, and student welfare are shaped by those in leadership, and when those leaders are mostly men, gendered experiences often go unaccounted for.
Achieving gender equality in education cannot stop at ensuring that girls are enrolled in school. It must extend to building systems where women are trusted to lead, empowered to influence policy, and supported throughout their professional journeys. This means creating transparent promotion tracks, actively addressing unconscious bias in leadership selection, and institutionalizing mentorship and training opportunities for aspiring female leaders. Without women at the helm, no education system can truly claim to be equitable or complete.
