How Far Is Progress? Gender Dimensions of Student Enrollment in Higher Education in Ghana: The Case of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Despite the World Declaration on Higher Education for the 21st Century that education is the ultimate support of human rights, and that access and participation remain key catalysts to accelerating equal educational opportunities for all, females continue to trail their male counterparts in educational outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa. This study focuses on the Ghanaian context and assesses the gender dimensions of student enrollment in higher education, highlighting the disparities therein. We adopt a typical case study design, and a mixed method approach, involving quantitative analysis of student enrollment data, qualitative interviews, and focus group discussions with administrators and students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. We find generally low female participation across all colleges of the university, except for the College of Health Sciences. We also find low female participation across three dimensions: qualified applicants, admissions, and enrollment. The causes of disparity in the dimensions of student enrollment are rooted in four main factors: institutional, socio-cultural, economic, and awareness of STEM policy and opportunities. The present findings have implications for the implementation of STEM and other gender policies at both the pre-tertiary and tertiary levels of education across sub-Saharan Africa. Plain Language Summary: How Far Is Progress? Gender Dimensions of Student Enrollment in Higher Education in Ghana: The Case of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology This paper examines the gender dimensions of higher education in Ghana between 2010-2020. It seeks to understand the extent of gender disparity in three key dimensions of student participation in higher education: qualified applicants, admissions, and actual enrolment. The paper also examines the causes of gender disparities across these three dimensions, and the impact of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) policies intended to improve female participation in these areas of science. We use a typical case study research design, and a mixed-method approach involving quantitative analysis, interviews, and focus group discussions. We chose the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi as our typical case, to help examine in-depth, the trends and causal mechanisms underlying gender participation along the three dimensions. Our findings show that gender disparities continue to exist, with particularly wide disparities in some academic disciplines. Notwithstanding, the university seems to have made significant strides in bridging the gender gap in enrolment in the last five years of the study period. The full potential of STEM policies, however, remains underexplored, importantly because the targets of the policy, females, are largely unaware of the opportunities available to them to pursue higher education. We also report the socioeconomic and socio-cultural bottlenecks girls continue to face in their quest to attain higher education, and the key role female role models can play in improving gender parity in higher education. Given the limitations of single case studies, we recommend large-n or comparative designs in future research on the subject [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]