EXAMINING INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR FEMALE EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA

Abstract

The foundation of development is education. That is why in every developed country or region, education is also developed. Since development is by the people and for the people, education is also by the people and for the people. This analogy seems to be very limited to a section of human category particularly in the developing countries like Ghana. There has been a considerable gender gap at all levels of the educational ladder in Ghana since the inception of formal education and this clearly manifests as it progresses. This study therefore sought to investigate thoroughly the implemented University of Education. Winneba (UEW) gender policy and its intervention strategies for attaining gender parity development through gender balancing in all the various activities of the University. Specifically, the study sought to assess the gender sensitivity issues among students, staffers and policy implementers of the University, its implementation impacts and challenges, and the effectiveness and viability of the gender policy strategies and how it contributes to national development. Methodologically, the study was a descriptive case research design suited on positivism-deductive philosophy; hence, adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches with questionnaire and in-depth interviews as the main instruments of data gathering. Through, purposive, quota and expert sampling techniques, 305 participants were sampled. This sample involved 320 respondents comprising 200 students and 100 staff: and 20 experts (gender policy implementers). From the analytical results, the study found that the implementation of the UEW gender policy is effective and viable as it still sustain a greater interventions such as the provision of financial assistance for female students and female workers, but gender gap in enrolment of females in the University still exist and females are under-represented on staff committees. Further, the some implementation challenges exist which accounts for the UEW gender policy's inability to attain its gender balance vision and objectives as scheduled. Finally, it was established that gender parity development in education promote national development in social, economic, financial, political and cultural ways. such as making women very capable to cater for their families which reduce high dependency on governnent. The study based on the findings to conclude that the implemented UEW gender policy and its intervention strategies for attaining gender parity development through gender balancing in all the various activities of the University is yielding expectations effectively however for its long term viability, the existing challenges need to be critically tackled. Policy recommendations made included establishment effective monitoring and supervision mechanisms to monitor and assess all the gender activities of the UEW Gender Directorate. Also, future research was also recommended after considering the methodological challenges.