Female Enrollment at Ethiopia's Universities Approaching 50 Pct

By Staff Reporters

May 4, 2011 (Ezega.com) - The latest gender equality index published by World Economic Forum shows that it is still a man’s world in Ethiopia. On the other hand, a new Ministry of Education report indicates that women students are likely to comprise historic 50 percent share in universities in the immediate future. 46.7 percent of new students currently entering Ethiopian universities are women.

According to the latest gender equality index, Ethiopia has slipped nine places from 2007 ranking to stand at 122 of 130 countries. While the three top-ranked countries have closed more than 80 percent of their gender gaps, the lowest ranking country has been successful in closing only 45 percent of its gender gap.

Besides Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Syria dropped farther in their relative ranking. The Report is based on four critical areas of inequality to measure size of the gender gap – educational attainment, economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment and decision making, life expectancy and survival.

Ethiopia stands at 50 in labor force participation; however, Ethiopian women do not get equal pay for equal work. It is ranked 96th in the Economic Participation and Opportunity category and 70th in political empowerment. According to the report, Ethiopian females have longer life expectancy than males and Ethiopia ranks 42 in the number of females in parliament.

On the other hand, in universities, the participation of female students is increasing. Education Minister Demeke Mekonnen confirms that 46.67 percent of the total 163,000 students entering preparatory programs this academic year are girls, according to Capital news report.

Under the Affirmative Action policies, doors have been opened for the enrolment of more girls and to assist them successfully complete their university and preparatory programs. However, the MoE report says that more efforts are the need of the hour to improve the rate of graduating female students in universities.

In September, Prime Minister Zenawi expressed concern about gender-related violence incidents at schools in both urban and rural areas.

For every 100 male students, there are less than 35 female tertiary students in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Niger, and Guinea. However, the report adds that once female students enter secondary education, they are more likely than male students to complete their studies.

For Ethiopia, its last year’s education status remains a source of pride for the administration, which appears to improve gender equality ratio, especially if we check official figures of the last year, when the first level of education coverage was 95.9 percent, which is expected to increase by one percent.