A Review of Women and Leadership in Tertiary Education in Cameroon: Adversities and Implications for Productivity

This paper is anchored on leadership and women in tertiary education in Cameroon with a focus on productivity from the perspective of these women. The review dwells on the premise that possibilities for floundering among women leaders abound with adverse consequences on their productivity. There are multifold concerns regarding women in leadership positions within higher education institutions ranging from: ability to manage work and family responsibilities, difficulty of receiving adequate mentoring from women with greater longevity and issues related to gender bias. While these adversities exist, there is seemingly a low key empathetic and supportive response from their male counterparts. Albeit these challenges, this paper examines the status quo through the lenses of a conceptual review to comprehend what literature has posited in respect to the topic under discourse. While the paper acknowledges the paucity of empirical works that have investigated the topic within the context of Cameroon, calls are equally made for more research to understand women in leadership positions within higher education institutions in Cameroon as well as some possible recommendations to remedy the challenges they face. Primarily, the male administrators may engage in behavioural adjustments towards female colleagues, support the activities of their female counterparts due to their extra responsibilities and equally show more empathy to their female co-workers.