Women students dominate at tertiary education institutions

Enrolment in Zimbabwe’s universities and teacher training colleges has favoured female students in the past two to three years, a recent government report shows.

The Education Statistics Report 2018-20 released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency in December 2021 states that 50,699 female students were recruited in universities in 2018 compared with 43,432 males, while, in 2019, 60,149 women enrolled in comparison to 51,535 men. In 2020, the numbers were 62,629 and 53,699, respectively.

Since gender parity was achieved in student recruitment at universities as far back as 2016, enrolment has favoured women but an analysis of enrolment at institutional level revealed that women dominated in specific faculties such as the arts, education, social studies and social sciences, while men dominated in sciences and technology.

“In most of the universities, enrolment is in favour of females. It is important to note that there are more males than females in universities that have special mandates of offering training in science and technology,” according to the report.

“In 2020, females constituted 35% of the enrolment at the Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences; 39% at the Harare Institute of Technology; 44% at the Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology and 44% at the National University of Science and Technology.”

Women students also dominate at teacher training colleges. In 2019, these colleges recruited 5,546 men compared to 18,491 females, while in 2020, 18,639 women and 5,442 men enrolled.

The trend was the opposite at technical and vocational colleges where male students dominated enrolment figures.

In 2018, 15,026 men enrolled compared to 9,337 women. In 2019, 19,499 men were recruited compared to 15,437 women. The same trend persisted in 2020 (18,647 men and 14,062 women). In some programmes, however, more women enrolled than men.

In Zimbabwe in 2020, tertiary education was offered by 20 universities, 14 teachers’ training colleges, and numerous technical and vocational training colleges, as well as agriculture training colleges.

In terms of expenditure on education as a percentage of central government expenditure, the report indicates that government-spend on tertiary education dropped from 6.6% Z$147 million (US$1.4 million) in 2010 to 3.9% or Z$124 million in 2020.

The drop in education expenditure was first observed in 2016 and has continued since.

The exchange rate was calculated using the official government rate.