Male Graduands Still Out Number Females
Jan 19, 2003
THERE were changes at Makerere University’s 42nd graduation last Friday, with Vice Chancellor Prof. John Sebuwufu conferring the degrees and awarding diplomas.
Today Art courses still pass out more female graduands than do Science courses
By Gerald Businge
THERE were changes at Makerere University’s 42nd graduation last Friday, with Vice Chancellor Prof. John Sebuwufu conferring the degrees and awarding diplomas.
The first one where the President did not preside, and it being held in January after a patience-stretching delay, but no change in the kind of courses favoured by students across genders.
After several years of intervention encouraging students to undertake science courses; and affirmative action where females entering Makerere University are given 1.5 points, there seems to be little change in the kind of courses students offer. Still, some courses remain a preserve of males and others of females. It could also be that the gaps are just still glaring.
Not only are Science courses having few graduands compared to Arts courses, the relative percentage of females in Science courses is still lower than in Arts courses. Leave alone the fact that of the 2,812 graduands in 81 fields of study, only 1,057 (37.59%) were females.
For the 34 undergraduate courses, the number of males graduating in the different fields of study was far high than that of females. The exception was in Secretarial Studies with 24 females and one male, Nursing with eight females and two men, these are courses traditionally associated with women.
While there is no practical evidence that the above courses are less important, the paucity of females in several Science-related courses cannot be good news, although generally, the number of Science graduates was still low compared to Arts.
For example, only 16 of the 72 graduands in Civil Engineering were females. So goes the trend in Mechanical Engineering (24 males, three females), Veterinary Medicine (26 males and three females). Twenty-three of the 24 graduands in Agricultural Engineering were males, with only one female.
However, the trend of more females was also profound in the new humanities where females were more in Bachelors of Tourism (9 females, 2 males), Development Studies (110 females and 72 males), Mass Communication (36 females and 25 males), Law (121 females and 109 males) and Business Administration (68 females and 61males).
As usual, the percentage number of female graduands decreased with the higher levels of educational attainment in several courses (38% on first degree, 37% on Master degrees and 33% of the doctorates were female).
Was this the flat trend throughout? While there were only 139 females of the 441 graduates of Education, 15 of the 29 Education Master’s graduates were females, showing that in some courses more females than males are attending higher education.
But remember, in what kind of courses. All the Masters graduates in Gender Studies were female, as did those in Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology and Masters of Arts in Organisational Psychology.
There were no trace of females in Accounting and Finance, Statistics, Civil Engineering and Pharmacology. There were only six females out of the 28 Master’s graduands in Economic Policy Management.
This, however, does not negate the fact that this graduation witnessed more female than male graduands in Demography and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics among other courses. So the traditional shift may be slow but there is some evidence that it is taking place.
While females made only 32 of the 100 Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery graduands, 12 of the 41 Master’s students in Medicine were female.
In some of the courses, you have to ask yourself where are the females. Can you imagine that all the 79 Bachelor of Social and Philosophical Studies graduates were males?
All the Doctor of Philosophy graduates in Science and Social Sciences are males.
But is it not surprising too that two of the three graduands with Doctorates of Philosophy in Agriculture were female?
While the list of graduands passed by Makerere last Friday may not indicate the actual number of students who finished in the particular courses (some are due for graduation in March or April 2003), there is no doubt that there is an urgent need to demystify the perception that some courses belong to males and some to females. Ends
By Gerald Businge
THERE were changes at Makerere University’s 42nd graduation last Friday, with Vice Chancellor Prof. John Sebuwufu conferring the degrees and awarding diplomas.
The first one where the President did not preside, and it being held in January after a patience-stretching delay, but no change in the kind of courses favoured by students across genders.
After several years of intervention encouraging students to undertake science courses; and affirmative action where females entering Makerere University are given 1.5 points, there seems to be little change in the kind of courses students offer. Still, some courses remain a preserve of males and others of females. It could also be that the gaps are just still glaring.
Not only are Science courses having few graduands compared to Arts courses, the relative percentage of females in Science courses is still lower than in Arts courses. Leave alone the fact that of the 2,812 graduands in 81 fields of study, only 1,057 (37.59%) were females.
For the 34 undergraduate courses, the number of males graduating in the different fields of study was far high than that of females. The exception was in Secretarial Studies with 24 females and one male, Nursing with eight females and two men, these are courses traditionally associated with women.
While there is no practical evidence that the above courses are less important, the paucity of females in several Science-related courses cannot be good news, although generally, the number of Science graduates was still low compared to Arts.
For example, only 16 of the 72 graduands in Civil Engineering were females. So goes the trend in Mechanical Engineering (24 males, three females), Veterinary Medicine (26 males and three females). Twenty-three of the 24 graduands in Agricultural Engineering were males, with only one female.
However, the trend of more females was also profound in the new humanities where females were more in Bachelors of Tourism (9 females, 2 males), Development Studies (110 females and 72 males), Mass Communication (36 females and 25 males), Law (121 females and 109 males) and Business Administration (68 females and 61males).
As usual, the percentage number of female graduands decreased with the higher levels of educational attainment in several courses (38% on first degree, 37% on Master degrees and 33% of the doctorates were female).
Was this the flat trend throughout? While there were only 139 females of the 441 graduates of Education, 15 of the 29 Education Master’s graduates were females, showing that in some courses more females than males are attending higher education.
But remember, in what kind of courses. All the Masters graduates in Gender Studies were female, as did those in Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology and Masters of Arts in Organisational Psychology.
There were no trace of females in Accounting and Finance, Statistics, Civil Engineering and Pharmacology. There were only six females out of the 28 Master’s graduands in Economic Policy Management.
This, however, does not negate the fact that this graduation witnessed more female than male graduands in Demography and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics among other courses. So the traditional shift may be slow but there is some evidence that it is taking place.
While females made only 32 of the 100 Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery graduands, 12 of the 41 Master’s students in Medicine were female.
In some of the courses, you have to ask yourself where are the females. Can you imagine that all the 79 Bachelor of Social and Philosophical Studies graduates were males?
All the Doctor of Philosophy graduates in Science and Social Sciences are males.
But is it not surprising too that two of the three graduands with Doctorates of Philosophy in Agriculture were female?
While the list of graduands passed by Makerere last Friday may not indicate the actual number of students who finished in the particular courses (some are due for graduation in March or April 2003), there is no doubt that there is an urgent need to demystify the perception that some courses belong to males and some to females. Ends