Women’s Voices on Gender Mainstreaming in ODL Institutions: The case of the Open University of Tanzania

Abstract

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has widen education opportunities to those who due to historical, socio-cultural and economic barriers could not access higher education. There are still less women representation at ODL institutions. At the Open University of Tanzania, the enrolment of female students is less than 30%, while women academic staff are 119 constituting 35.5% of total number of academic staff. Women administrative staff constitute 57% most of them in lower cadres of employment (OUT 2012). Gender mainstreaming in the institutions has been identified as a viable mechanism for enhancing gender equity in education. The study is based on a recent qualitative research study  entitled†Women‟s Voices on Gender Mainstreaming in Higher Learning Institutions: The Case of The Open University of Tanzaniaâ€. A sample of 100 women from different categories of OUT staff, work stations and age groups was purposively selected from the target population. Open handed questionnaire, interviews and documentation techniques were used to collect data while content and discourse analysis were employed to analyse the data.      The findings of the study indicated that the prevailing understanding of gender mainstreaming was that it is „a process of increasing women participation in all aspects of the organization‟.  Most women at OUT did not interrogate gender perspectives and practices in relation to existing policies, guidelines and plans. Some voices however, indicated that certain practices including budgets, staff development and work environment were gender blind. Some of the positive gender initiatives at the institution require strengthening.