Participation of Women in Engineering & Technology Education and Employment

Abstract

Engineering and Technology Education is a means to sustain and accelerate the overall development in a country and it has a direct effect on individuals’ productivity and earnings as well. But the problem is there is gender disparity in distribution especially in developing countries among educational branches. In Ethiopia, despite significant improvements in the last couple of years, women are still under-represented in engineering and technology. Since the share of Ethiopian women in science and technology programs in higher education has been low, the governments apply a policy to stream 70% of all university entrants to be in the science and technology track indirectly to increase their entry into these fields. Even if this types of policy is applying, their participation in engineering and technology education and employment is very low proportion. The main purpose of this study is an attempt to assess trends and share of women in the field of engineering and technology regarding to their share of enrollment, employment and professional positions from the period 2000 -12 based on available secondary data collected from different sources. The collected quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive data analysis techniques. Result from the data shows that there is low share of women in engineering and technology enrollment, employment and professional position status as compared to male in the country. Even if the share of enrollment of women in higher education is on improved status, their share of enrollment in engineering and technology filed is quite low that on average below 30 percent per year. In addition, this grate disparity and low participation of women in engineering and technology invites further investigation regarding to what is the reason behind.