Perceptions of Teachers and Students about Gender Friendly Institution of Higher Learning

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the comparative perceptions of teachers and students about gender friendly institutions of higher learning. The major objectives of the study was to investigate and compare the perceptions of teaching- learning community about gender friendly institutions of higher learning regarding various aspects such as equality of opportunities, equality of treatment, equality of respect, equality of utilities, equality of workload, institutional policies and rules by major demographic features. The teachers and students of universities formulated the population of the study of which samples was drawn. Tool of research- questionnaire was adapted from the work of ILO sponsored Education Development Center (2007) and pilot tested for data collection and situation analysis. The tool had twelve factors comprising sixty two items associated with gender friendly institutions to be measured on three point scale denoting Yes, No and Don’t know. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze data. T-test was used to make comparison setting level of confidence as 0.05. The data reveals the perception of university teachers and students about the gender friendly institution of higher learning as sketchy and non-transparent as universities appear to follow weaker practices in the context of gender mainstreaming and practically there is need to promote gender equality and implementation of gender friendly institution policies and practices.