Has the gender question at Makerere university become of age? Lessons from female dominated graduation statistics.
Undoubtedly, the statistics have occupied a significant part of public debate, framing different narratives on what possibly accounts for a ‘steady’ increase in the female graduates on the one hand and seeming decline in males’ completion of university education. There are three broader frames within which these statistics have been received and debated. The first category of responses entails a much more accommodative and progressive stance on the statistics as marker of progress towards addressing historical, colonial and patriarchal gender imbalances that have pre-occupied the century old Makerere University. To these commentators, the statistics point to the visible fruits of deliberate institutional investment in girls’ education and broadly the women’s emancipation agenda at Makerere and Uganda at large. Comments of this nature zeroed on how the NRM regime and its focus on girls and women has created milestones including in the education sector; the donor community that has tirelessly invested in girls’ scholarships and mentorship programmes; the institutional affirmative action programme in form of 1.5 additional points as a strategy to increase access to higher education, among others.
The second category of responses fall in a rather cautionary, reactionary and pessimistic stance. They push the idea that these statistics point to an already ongoing experience of the neglect of the ‘boy child’ as a trend that all of us need to worry about, a pointer to the reversal of gender power relations, and a negative precedence in which the boy child is on a downward freefall because of the women’s emancipation programmes. Others wondered whether affirmative action has not overperformed and thus no longer a relevant equity strategy. Yet many more predicted that these trends will soon present with dire consequences of highly empowered women without men to marry them which will spell doom for the family structure. The 3rd category of responses did not find justifiable reason either to celebrate or be worried of the gendered trends of graduation at Makerere University. These ones looked at the differences between male and female graduands as insignificant and not worth worrying about or as a reflection of numerical strength of females within the general population of Uganda.
Regardless of which stance, the fact that the debate on gender disaggregated graduation statistics found space during and after the annual graduation of a prime university, deserves our individual and institutional attention. What do we possibly learn from this debate?
Deep rooted historical gender imbalances
Makerere University celebrated 100 years of existence in 2022 having started in 1922 as a technical college. Founded within a Eurocentric colonial patriarchal discourse with the motto Let us all be Men, the male-centred character of this academic institution was later countered with the admission of the first female students in early 1945. The pioneer ‘Makerere boys’ were trained in carpentry and mechanics with boys’ education primarily driven by the 1914-1918 artisanal demands triggered by the First World War. The curriculum later expanded in the 1920s and early 1930s to include courses such as surveying, engineering, agriculture, clerical work, telegraphy, teacher training and veterinary studies. As women's enrolment picked up, the university curriculum expanded to include courses such as higher arts, adult women’s course diploma, Bachelor of Arts (BA), and general education subjects including History, Social Studies, Geography, Mathematics, English and Library studies in early 1960s and 70s. Undoubtedly, these foundational disciplinary differences shaped the institutional culture of the university in later years.
Institutional strategy for gender equality
While women later gained entry into Makerere university in 1945, their entry was never on equal grounds. For example, as one of the first 6 pioneer women, Sarah Ntiro’s (RIP) recalled how she was barred from a mathematics class, revealing outright sexism and perhaps other subtle forms of resistance which inhibited girls' education at the time. While the boys were recruited into college education to respond to the skilled labour and administrative demands of the colonial government, women’s education was framed on moral grounds, i.e., their ability to prove ‘beyond doubt, that they were 'well mannered' and not likely to disrupt ‘well intentioned’, rational men. Other accounts on colonial education indicate how girls’ education was more attuned to the theme of domesticating women. Colonial and missionary education often focused on educating women as future wives and mothers. It would be erroneous to presume that these deep-rooted legacies of patriarchal colonialism have been overcome by state interventions of affirmative action. In fact, these disparities still show within the distribution of courses amongst female and male students at the university.
The 1990s saw the government and the Makerere University in particular put in place a host of mechanisms to address the historical gender imbalances in higher education. From the adoption of sex disaggregation in university admission and completion statistics in 1970s, to the 1990/1991 affirmative action in form of 1.5 additional points to female entrants in the university and putting institutional structures such as the senate committee on gender mainstreaming, the Department of Women and Gender Studies and later the Directorate of Gender Mainstreaming as well gender sensitive policies, gender discourse became a legitimate conversation at Makerere university. While there is no doubt that the current progress in females’ access and completion rates are the effect of these deliberate institutional efforts, most of the progress we see is still minimal and largely quantitative, far from suggesting an overhaul of the legacies of colonial, capitalist and patriarchal gender oppression that has characterized the earlier years of Makerere University.
As such, these debates on female/male composition are rather healthy on different grounds especially in an academic environment that yearns for gender transformation.
Persistent gender inequalities
The debate have reminded us to pay a closer attention to the disciplines that have significantly contributed higher numbers of female graduates in recent years. These suggestions appealed to the academy to consider tracer studies on possible trends of student enrollment, retention as well as completion rates to arrive at the root of the gender disparities in graduation. Statistics for 2022 – 2024 graduation indicate that females dominate only at the undergraduate programme level and remain trailing at the PhD level, Masters as well as postgraduate and Undergraduate diploma programmes. In 2024 graduation females dominated in colleges of Business and management science (811 females: 668 Males), College of Education and External studies (543 F: 337 M), College of Humanities and Social Sciences (942 F: 456 M). Lower numbers of female graduands remain in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Re-thinking masculinities in gender discourses.
The debates flagged an urgent call to examine the often-unexamined experience of men in gender conversations. Beyond the now popular reactionary stance of “the boy child” narrative that has at times been used in some audiences to mobilize popular counter reaction to women’s rights, equality and gender justice, the debate has demonstrably highlighted the need to re-think the way we have understood and applied the concept of gender by interrogating the often-silenced experiences of young men as gender concerns. There have been testimonies to the effect that boys dropping out of school is not only a real concern in universities but also lowest levels of education such as primary school as some strive to take on the traditional male provider role. Seeking to widen gender relations by examining men’s experiences, in particular exploring possibilities of masculine vulnerability points to a gender discourse that has become of age.
Gender Backlash
The debate also highlighted apparent forms of gender backlash especially with calls to roll back institutional gains in gender such as the affirmative action. Yet for others, the answer to debates on statistical differences is not to de-institutionalize affirmative action (which may not directly address young men’s concerns in schools) but rather to review the suitability of the strategy as stipulated in the Uganda Constitution.
Statistics of women in college life at an institution founded on an exclusive male education represent a symbolically significant step towards the transformation of a male-centred higher education system, one that is worth embracing rather than hold in suspicion. At same time, they are a reminder of the institutional responsibility to ensure that in pursuit of equality, no forms of inequalities are reproduced. As one of the University officials commented in the debate, “the emerging trend is a real one we need to take note of and a call on all of us to purpose to attain diversity and inclusivity. The trend is a reminder to all of us on how gender as a category of analysis has travelled from the initial gender-blind focus in the hegemonic colonial and patriarchal norms – Let us all be men – towards more accountable, inclusive and sustainable gender equity agendas as we build for the future.
By:
Dr. Amon Ashaba Mwiine, Lecturer, Makerere University, amonmwiine@gmail.com
Ms. Elizabeth Atuheire, Graduate Student, Makerere University, atuheirelisa19@gmail.com
This is such a balanced insightful piece! Thank you, Amon and Elizabeth for calling our attention to this rather significant discussion.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, the place of men in the gender equality question is a critical one that requires careful treading lest one finds oneself in the box of those backlashing gender equality.
This is rather not to say that all is rosy, but to open our eyes to the idea of moving beyond women and development, to gender and development.
Whereas, it is important to embrace the transformative approaches that prioritise interrogating relations of gender to enable a holistic, coherent and sustainable realisation of gender equality, the well-crafted masculine urge to keep the systems of patriarchal relations, even in a context where gender equality and women empowerment are central in the development terrain, keeps threatening to undo the hard-earned forms of gender equality in enrollment, participation and completion.
I am glad the article is open to such implicit forms of backlash crafted in the manner of the 'victimhood claim,' in the problematic 'boy child' phenomenon.
I would advocate for a kind of re-socialisation of the male children where alternative forms of socialisation that are context-specific and flexible about change in the environment; both spatial-geographical and time change, are embraced to ensure equal relations in the form of access to, utilisation of and benefitting from higher educational opportunities.
Second, as a male involvement practitioner, I would argue that we have honest and deliberate debates enshrined in, and guided by the existing frameworks of achieving gender equality to groom masculinities and femininities that are complementary right from childhood lest we shall continue having this insignificant push and pull aimed at gatekeeping power, positions and privilege.
All said, may we have a critical male involvement strategy that seeks to embrace humanity rather than amplify individualism.