More girls enrolling for technical courses

Justine Namutebi installing a solar system.

What you need to know:

  • Although the recently released Uganda Business and Technical Examinations Board revealed a slight increase in enrollment for vocational education by female students, most are still reluctant to take on technical courses.

Yvonne Namuli describes herself as a go-getter. Though her love for ‘fixing’ things has often made her appear weird and typically a tomboy among her peers, she has stayed persistent in the pursuit of her dreams.
Currently pursuing a certificate in Plumbing and Joinery at Kyamulibwa Vocational Training Institute in Kalungu District, she says that has been her passion since childhood. “I was always curious to know and fix things. As a child we used to fetch water from the well which I hated. So I told myself that when I grew up, I would look for means of supplying people with water so they do not have to fetch it,” she narrates. “When I joined the course last year after my Senior Four, everyone, including fellow classmates, were surprised that I could opt for plumbing. Some girls saw it as a dirty job they can never do, but I never thought of it that way. This is because the course is associated with many gender stereotypes. We are only about five girls in a class of more than 20 students,” she says.
Namuli’s, like many other student’s stories in vocational and technical schools, reveals how the mindset about technical education is still a hindrance to girls hoping to take on related courses.

As evidenced in the recently released Uganda Business and Technical Examination Board (UBTEB) 2017 results, there is still a disparity and an apparent attachment of gender issues in courses.
According to the UBTEB statistics, female candidates dominated in business-related programmes, while male candidates dominated technical programmes.
There were 2,745 girls registered for both business diploma and certificate programmes in contrast to 660 boys on the same fields making it a difference of 61 per cent. Yet, there were 3,760 girls registered for both advanced and national technical certificate programmes compared to the 18,369 boys, a 66 per cent difference.

Frustration
In confirmation of this huge discrepancy is Esther Ajok, a former student of Kiryandongo Technical Institute, Kiryandongo, who studied electrical installation work back in 2007.
“At the institute, I found only two girls studying brick laying and concrete in their final year. With me, was another girl studying Electrical Installation but a term later she abandoned the course due to the stigma from locals, former classmates and friends. I then remained the only girl in a school of 500 students,” Ajok narrates.

The only thing that kept her going was joining different clubs and associations at the school, where all boys treated her like a sister.
“I was nicknamed hermaphrodite for wearing overalls as I moved to the workshop for industrial training. I also could not freely interact with my friends who kept despising and laughing at me as they shared their experiences from schools they had joined after O-Level,” she partly shares her story.

Slight raise
The numbers keep increasing over the years by more girls enrolling into technical courses and boys into female dominated courses. Technical certificate courses such as automotive mechanics, for example, saw an increase in the number of female students from 19 girls in 2016 to 47 girls in 2017.

On the other hand, the female dominated fashion and design course had 136 boys sitting for it in 2017 an increase from the 65 in 2016.
Nevertheless, courses such as agricultural engineering mechanics and pottery and ceramics remain male dominated with no single girl enrolling for them in both 2017 and 2016, save for two girls who sat for agricultural engineering mechanics in 2016 according to statistics by UBTEB.

Mindset issues
In response to these disparities, Gertrude Abalo, the principal Fisheries Training Institute, Entebbe, says this is largely caused by the mindset problem.
“Some people –students themselves, parents and the general public still have a wrong mindset about who (gender) and what (roles) one should do. For example, one may feel that fields such as carpentry, electrical, mechanical, construction, fisheries are for males, while soft fields such as catering, tailoring, hairdressing are suitable for females,” she says.

However, she agrees that the most important aspect is having the potential to do a certain course, irrespective of sex.
Even so, a change of attitude comes overtime. Joseph Mulindwa, a parent, insists that though there is a move of men studying women dominated jobs and vice versa, some things really never change.
“I believe there are gender-related limitations that will always be present. Being a mechanic for example may call for responsibilities such as lying on a dirty ground, which a woman may not be able to do. Or being a fashion designer calls for a lot of creativity, and women are gifted in this. So I believe some of these differences exist because of more natural factors we might not be able to change,” Mulindwa states.

However, Gladys Akol, an instructor at Rukore Community Polytechnic, advises that female and male role models in male dominated fields and female dominated fields can help in encouraging other students to enroll in these fields “Sharing experiences and challenges to encourage others is important and I believe can help in attitude change,” she says.