According to a report by the National Statistics Bureau, only 8.8 per cent of the Bhutanese women hold executive positions in the civil service. The National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) is seeking to increase the figure to 15 per cent by 2023.
The NCWC said this at the Australia Awards Short Course titled Women in Executive Leadership Development Program, which is underway in Thimphu. It is being attended by 16 selected executives of which 11 are women.
The commission thinks parental leave is fundamental to changing the status quo. “We want to encourage men to play an equal role in child rearing, so it is from this point of view that we would like to introduce the parental leave,” Kunzang Lhamu, the Director of NCWC said.
What parental leave means is that either the father or the mother could take leave from work to raise a child as opposed to the current system, which forces only mothers to take longer periods of leave.
“Parental leave will have many benefits for women because the father can take leave instead of them and they can focus on their careers,” the NCWC Director added.
The parental leave is part of the strategy draft document prepared by the commission to enhance women representation in the executive positions in the civil service.
The workshop facilitator, Polly Parker from Australia, says it’s important to have women in executive positions to ensure decision making bodies are representative of the general population.
Polly Parker is an Associate Dean of Academic with the University of Queensland. “Women bring a different understanding to the problems and that’s why their voice matters.”
The three-day workshop is one of the three components of the Australia Awards Short Course on Women in Executive Leadership Development Program. The entire program is aimed at strengthening and promoting leadership capabilities of executives.
It is expected to help enable them to initiate change process that results in working environments that promote and support women to undertake executive leadership roles at local and central government levels.
“The women take care of the family and so they are so busy, and suddenly you also expect them to come to office and do well,” Kesang Deki, a Commissioner with the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) said.
She added that it’s not possible for the women civil servants to rise in their career ladder when they have to take care of 95 per cent of household chores.
Polly Parker of the University of Queensland thinks such workshop will help bring about positive changes. “The participants come from different sectors including education, agriculture, and so developing their capability means increasing the sphere of influence.”
The earlier two components of the program saw the participants take part in an online course and an in-Australia program, both of which took place in November and December last year.
The short course focused on several other leadership themes, such as women leading in adaptive environments, developing personal leadership capabilities, peer coaching and mentoring, development of team and organisational leadership capabilities, promoting inclusion and diversity, and strategic leadership and innovation.
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