Persisting challenges of women in accessing senior leadership positions in South African higher education: A comprehensive systematic review

Zelalem Zekarias Oliso & Sibongile Simelane-Mnisi

Volume 6 Issue 2, June 2026

Abstract

The status of women’s participation in senior leadership positions remains an unachieved global agenda in all sectors, including higher education. The extant literature consistently underscores the underrepresentation of women in senior leadership positions at South African public universities. The main purpose of this review was to identify the major persisting challenges that limit women's advancement into senior leadership positions and to propose strategies to reduce the existing barriers. Using systematic literature review, this study synthesizes findings from 24 journal articles published between May 2015 and February 2026, sourced from well-known databases, namely Google Scholar, ERIC, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, and the Taylor and Francis Group. The findings from the review identified that several intermingled, persistent challenges obstruct women's access to top leadership positions in South African academia. Lack of support, mentoring programmes and networking, recruitment and selection biases, role conflicts, discrimination, gender stereotypes, gender inequity, gendered organizational culture, and gaps in gender policy formulation and practice are qualified as persisting challenges over the past ten consecutive years. The findings further indicated that refusal to racial discrimination, effective training and development programmes, provision of support and networking platforms, mentoring programmes and research, promoting institutional change and policy reforms, conducting continuous monitoring and evaluation systems, and ongoing advocacy and policy interventions are regarded as systematic strategies to mitigate the existing barriers. Institutional and government commitment play a pivotal role in achieving real gender parity in senior leadership positions and aligning with international, continental, and regional development goals.

Keywords

Author information & Contribution

Zelalem Zekarias Oliso. Corresponding Author. PhD. Postdoctoral Fellow at Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa. Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership at Arba Minch University, Ethiopia. Visiting Research Scholar (VRS) at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Email: Olisozz@tut.ac.za

Sibongile Simelane-Mnisi. PhD. Professor, Lecturer & Instructional Designer at Tshwane University of Technology, Faculty of Humanities, School of Education, and Department of Educational Foundation.

"All authors equally contributed to the conception, design, preparation, data gathering, and analysis, and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."

Disclosure statement

Funding

Institutional Review Board Statement

Data and Materials Availability

AI Declaration

Notes

Acknowledgement

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Cite this article:

Oliso, Z.Z. & Simelane-Mnisi, S. (2026). Persisting challenges of women in accessing senior leadership positions in South African higher education: A comprehensive systematic review. International Review of Social Sciences Research, 6(2), 272-293. https://doi.org/10.53378/irssr.353366