WomanEd Asia

WomenEd Asia:

A growing network growing and empowering female leaders

Jess Gosling

Reception Teacher, Taipei European School

WomenEd is a global grassroots movement, led by volunteers. The organisation connects aspiring and existing women leaders in education and gives women leaders a voice in education. The original UK network was cofounded in 2015 by Vivienne Porritt OBE, Liz Free, Keziah Featherstone, and Jules Daulby, all based in England. The Asian networks are a rapidly growing group as before 2019, WomenEd had been predominantly UK/Europe based.

WomenEd’s mission is for more women in education to have the choice to progress on their leadership journey. To achieve this, WomenEd work to remove systematic and organisational barriers to such progress and to empower and enable women to achieve their next leadership step, if they choose to progress in leadership roles.

The current Asian networks include Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Three of the four networks were set up by FOBISIA school leaders and teachers (Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan).

This article will detail the three FOBISIA schools and their work with WomenEd.

WomenEd Malaysia, led by Rebecca Findlay (School Leader), Karen Morgan (University Dean), Tracy Lewis, and Katie Tomlinson (School Leader) launched in November 2020. Their events have included: Females in February Webinar Series, Wellbeing Wednesdays and Break the Bias. The Malaysian network has a key focus of bridging the local and international community as well as shining a spotlight on women who had developed successful careers beyond the education sector. The webinars have attracted a large audience of not just educators, but industry professionals and parents and inspired, motivated and supported by their peers as well as women whose paths they would not usually have crossed.

WomenEd Taiwan was founded by Jess Gosling, and now led by Jaya Hiranandani, and Jessica Wang Simula. Jess has since left the network to pursue a teaching plus a leadership role in Poland. WomenEd Taiwan was established in August 2021. Their focus is to build an empowered community of educators, as there were no similar networks such as this in Taiwan. To date, they organised face-to-face meetups, including a presentation by a female school leader and university professor. Online, they led a Wellbeing conference with speakers from WomenEd Spain and also a successful CEO, who discussed confidence in the workplace. Last year, they also held a Zoom webinar with Q and A about creating CVs, hosted by Jess and a recruitment consultant, talking through and reviewing quality CVs. For their #BreaktheBias event, they brought together the community by discussing gender bias scenarios, whereby they problem-solved to support one another. The network aims to bring together a range of teachers from international schools, language schools, and those working in the local school system.

The WomenEd Thailand network was created in 2021 and is currently led by international educators Karly Evans, Jacqui Brelsford, Rebecca Owens and Thai educator Neetirat Pungdach. The aim of the network is to help both Thai and international educators across Thailand to forge connections, seek support and advice and become 10% braver in an international context. In its first year the network has hosted several events including WomenEd’s first SouthEast Asian #WomenEd International Career Clinic hosted by inspiring female leaders across the network with over 80 educators across several countries signing up to participate. This event began with motivating words from WomenEd Co-founder Vivienne Porritt and Malaysian Network Leader Katie Tomlinson, followed by a selection of workshops to facilitate a more bespoke experience and an engaging Q and A session with a diverse and experienced panel. Additional events have included a Thai language TeachMeet, coffee mornings and most recently their June panel discussion ‘#WomenEd Leadership: Reflect and Plan This Summer!’ aimed at providing potential and existing leaders with practical advice prior to the next international recruitment cycle.