Makalanga, L. B.2023-01-042023-01-042022Makalanga, L.B. (2022). Women political leadership in provision of quality education in selected Local Government Authorities in Tanzania. In 9th International Conference on Gender & Women’s Studies 2022 (pp. 46-54)http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/3599Full Text Conference ProceedingThe initiatives for provision of quality education has been a concern in Tanzania since independence in 1961. Different scholars in the globe have been dealing with community participation in many countries, but few of them are directly linking women local leaders with the improvement of quality education provision in the society. The tendency in both developed and developing countries has been to increase the number of women representatives in local decision-making organs. However, little is known on whether women in local decision-making organs in Tanzania have strength to influence decisions for improving quality education provision. Hence, this, paper intends to present and discuss findings in an academic interactive manner, the part of women political leaders in improving quality education in selected local government authorities in Dodoma Region as a case study. Data were collected using household survey, Focus group discussion (FGD), semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and documentary reviews. Quantitative data were analyzed with the help of the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) while qualitative data were thematically analyzed. The findings of the study showed that there are aspects of the capacity of women political leaders, explicitly through: leadership style that tends to be self-governing, motherly and shared; decision-making aspects in attaining the community needs of both boy and girls-children and features of family provision as an outside power in carrying out women’ role as a political leader. The study concludes that, women political leaders have a significant role in improving quality education provision in the study area especially at the community level. The capacity of women is influenced in fulfilling their gender roles as women leaders, family care takers and community members; thus women influenced decisions in ensuring that gender equality is enhanced in school enrollment among boys and girl-children in the society. The study recommends that, more women should be encouraged to hold political posts to work out their leadership roles as care takers, members of the community and political leaders. This will enable women as vulnerable group in the society to act as catalysts in stimulating provision of quality education as men do in the society.enWomen participationQuality educationWomen political leadersLocal Government AuthoritiesTanzaniaWomen politicianWomen leadersConference Proceedings