A Study on the Effectiveness of Female Affirmative Action Program at Jimma University-Education Faculty,
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Date
2007-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Education is perhaps the single essential measure to ensure sustainable
economic development, democratic participation and peace building. Higher
education specifically has a great potential in the country's over all
development since it is the level at which candidates gain society based
knowledge and develop skills and attitudes to shape the coming
generation. However, gender inequality has been among the major
overwhelmingly prevailing problems at tertiary education. In cognizant of
this prevalent gender gap, the Ethiopian government education policy
(1994) affirmed the commitment of the government to establish an
education s y s tem that facilitates and encourages the equal participation of
both boys and girls. Thus, to this end, the Ministry of Education put the
affirmative action policy, which allows girls to be admitted in higher
education institutions with a lower GPA by 0 .2 than their male counter
parts. Besides, higher education institutions are mandated to design
affirmative action strategies with in the framework of the policy to
ameliorate campus based impediments.
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to see the effectiveness of the
program at Jimma University- Education faculty .. Accordingly, descriptive
survey method was used. To collect reliable data, questionnaire, interview
and document p.nalysis were employed as instruments., Various sets of
questions were prepared for 190 female students and 70 ins tructors. Two
experts from gender office were also participated in the research by
providing information through interview. The result revealed that though an
improvement has been under way the program was not effective as
intended. Primarily, female students didn't get sufficient orientation
regarding the importance of the program. In addition, the numbers of
female students and f emale instructors who have been supposed to be role
models were few. Moreo ver, the attitude of female students towards the
program and themselves negatively affected the success of the program.
Other academic and non-academic problems such as poor academic
p erformance at lower levels, economic cons traints and socia cultural factors
exacerbate the situation at the faculty and became beyond the capacity of
the program. As a result, female students' participation at the faculty
remained below the males.
Finally, the study suggested that to promote gender equity in education, a
concerted effort should be made by all stakeholders at the faculty in
collaboration with other support providers .
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Keywords
Effectiveness of Female Affirmative Action Program