ENHANCING PARTICIPATION OF GIRLS IN TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET): THE CASE OF TAMALE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Most people opined that Technical Education is the preserve for boys only, but that should not be the case. Over the years, most of the engineering programmes such as Automobile, Building and Construction, Carpentry and Joinery, Mechanical, Electrical, Welding and others are termed as male dominated programmes, which should not also be the case. Hardly does one see girls enrolling in these programmes. Most of the time one can find one or two girls in such a class, and in most cases, these girls perform excellently, which shows that when encouraged, more girls would like to offer engineering programmes. The purpose of this paper was to find out what is preventing girls from enrolling in the engineering programmes and what can be done to encourage them to enroll in such programmes. 100 questionnaires were distributed to girls not enrolled in engineering programmes. Also, ten girls in the engineering programmes were interviewed as well as visits to the classrooms to get first-hand information on girls’ performance. The study revealed that, cultural and public perception about the programme for girls is preventing most girls in enrolling in the engineering programmes.  It is recommended that there should be continuous sensitization for girls, about TVET programmes. There should also be a quota system in place to cater for girls’ intake into engineering programme as affirmative action.