Women Educational Policy Making and Administration in England

Description

In her Presidential Address to the Head Mistresses Association in 1919, Miss Reta Oldham brought up that in spite of the fact that ladies were ‘conceded to possess extensive arranging and managerial endowments’ no lady, so far as she knew, involved an authoritative situation at the Board of education and no Local Authority utilized a lady Director of Education.Although she saw the ongoing arrangement of Miss Clement as AssistantDirector of Education for Warwickshire as ‘a cheerful sign in the right direction’, she told the collected headmistresses this must be balanced the way that candidates for the post of Education Organizer to the Middlesex County Council had as of late been informed that ladies were ineligible to apply. Miss Oldham encouraged the headmistresses present ‘to be fanatical in using, and in reminding others to utilize, their benefits as nearby government voters’.2Miss Oldham’s Presidential Address introduced a between war methodology to redress what has been named the ‘unattainable rank’, an articulation which has by now advanced into the word references, being characterized as: ‘an undefined but unmistakable obstruction on the profession stepping stool, through which certain categories of workers (usu. ladies) discover they can see yet not progress’.3 The 1990shave seen a developing yield of books (generally by ladies) on lady’s in administration and the board, particularly as respects the ‘glass ceiling’.4Standard messages on the historical backdrop of instructive strategy making and administration, then again, regularly discard or minimize the contribution of ladies.