Women in Higher Education in Nigeria

Author(s):  
Abiola Ibidunni Odejide ◽  
Obasanjo Joseph Oyedele

This chapter examines issues of female access to higher education in Nigeria and the equity and empowerment interventions available to female staff and students in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the light of Items 4 and 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals. It focuses on the major challenges, responses, their drivers, and their effectiveness. Statistical and existing qualitative data are used to highlight the persistent sociocultural, economic, political, security, and policy challenges that continue to negatively impact female participation and experiences in higher education. It advocates enactment and implementation of legislation and institutional policies to promote gender equity, gendering of the curriculum, females' equitable and quality participation in leadership positions, and better security from internal and external threats. Advocacy to foster widespread attitudinal change and collaboration on global and regional development initiatives marked by national priorities should facilitate the attainment of these goals. .

Author(s):  
Sunaina Gowan

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the implications of COVID-19 to higher education and how universities and colleges can play a critical role in helping shape new ways for the world by adopting environmental sustainability as its academic mission. The effects of the pandemic have reached such proportions that the world may never be the same again. Even though educational institutions have been affected at different levels, there are some measures that can be undertaken to mitigate its impacts. The findings indicate the need for the integration of higher education for sustainable development. This study provides a unique and timely commentary about how coronavirus has altered in positive and negative ways higher education. It suggests that, due to its areas of influence, COVID-19 may also jeopardise the implementation of the sustainable development goals. It sends a cautious warning about the need to continue to put an emphasis on education for sustainable development, so that progress achieved to date is not endangered.


2021 ◽  
Vol 291 ◽  
pp. 05040
Author(s):  
Elena Molokova

The article is devoted to the assessment of the role of higher education in ensuring socio-economic sustainability of society development. Based on the analysis of international and Russian legal acts, it identifies the main indicators that allow analyzing the impact of higher education system on the implementation of sustainable development goals. Particular attention is paid to assessment of accessibility of education. Based on the analysis of statistical data, it is concluded that there is a problem of differentiation of regions and territories in terms of access to higher education due to uneven location of educational institutions, different density of students, low inter-regional mobility of population and disproportions in incomes of the population. Regional differentiation in access to higher education in Russia leads to a number of socio-economic problems that reduce the sustainability of regional development, including the outflow of young people and uncompensated labour migration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Effeh Attom ◽  
Anitha Oforiwah Adu-Boahen ◽  
Esther Yeboah Danso-Wiredu

The study explored female students’ quest for leadership and experiential leadership realities in higher educational institutions in Ghana. In Ghana, female enrolment in higher educational institutions has increased due to population increases and campaign for girl-child education. However, despite the opportunities and access to higher education, female students’ quest for leadership positions in their educational institutions is often thwarted and largely insignificant compared to their male counterparts. However, there is evidence in Ghana that national leadership, especially in politics, is usually linked to leadership at tertiary institutions, especially, in the universities.  Using female students’ leadership in governance at the University of Education (UEW) as a study focus, and employing the liberal feminist theory, we hypothesised that female students’ desire for leadership positions in higher education would not differ significantly from reality due to some systemic cultural challenges. The study revealed that certain leadership positions are preserved of males, and females who vie for such positions generally encounter some cultural setbacks . The study concludes that female students are motivated to take leadership positions due to their desire to lead and serve the people, but society uses gender to set limit for women when they vie for leadership positions. The study recommends that teachers and parents should encourage both males and females to take up equal leadership roles early in life to arouse in them the drive for future leadership positions.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Dettori ◽  
Geeta Rao Gupta

This chapter identifies some of the most stubborn gender-based risks and vulnerabilities girls face as a cohort from preadolescence through late adolescence across the domains of personal capabilities, security, safety, economic resources, and opportunities. It reviews progress made during the Millennium Development Goal era in improving girls’ health and well-being and looks to the role of adolescent girls in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. The chapter concludes by recommending an approach for global partnership that is linked to national and local actions and that is centered on priority interventions that can catalyze change, at scale, for adolescent girls.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Dalla Gasperina ◽  
Janaina Mazutti ◽  
Luciana Londero Brandli ◽  
Roberto dos Santos Rabello

Purpose Smart campuses can be seen as the future of higher education efforts, especially for their contributions to sustainability and to encourage innovation. This paper aims to present the benefits of smart practices in a Higher Education Institutions and highlights its connections to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Design/methodology/approach The methodology is divided into three steps: first, an international search and assessment of smart practices at universities; second, the identification of smart practices in a university campus in southern Brazil; and third, the presentation of the benefits of smart practices and their relationship with the SDGs. Findings The results showed that globally, the area most covered by smart practices in universities is the environment and, specifically, focused on waste reduction. in the context of this case study, the benefits of implementing smart practices mainly reach SDGs 4 and SDG 9, especially due to aspects of teaching technologies for the new classroom models and the optimization of campus infrastructure management. Practical implications The study encourages other universities to implement smart practices in their campuses, to becoming smart campuses while they also collaborate in achieving the SDGs while raising the discussion on the importance of committed actions taken on a university campus with the UN SDGs, to leverage synergies on campus operations at universities. Originality/value This paper presents a set of smart practices that universities are applying both globally and locally (in southern Brazil). In addition, it contributes to sustainability research by showing how smart practices have the potential to promote SDGs in universities, especially through campus operations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Dranzoa

In most African states, joining higher education institutions (HEIs) is, for students, an investment in their own economic progress. Yet, HEIs are sites where sexual harassment and gender-based violence (GBV) occur, increasing the vulnerability of newly enrolled female students and of women in general. A strong gender policy environment, a clear stand by senior management at HEIs, and the empowerment ofmen with respect to gender equity issues are remedies to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being), goal 4 (Quality Education), goal 5 (Gender Equality), and goal 10 (Reduced Inequality).


2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 04010
Author(s):  
Vyacheslav Ilgov ◽  
Zhanna Gardanova ◽  
Natalya Nikitina

Our paper aims at assessing the sustainable development of the universities in the 21st century that is market by globalization, high penetration of information and communication technologies as well as global environmental changes. The paper stresses that the higher education is undergoing profound changes in its role and its position in the society and should focus its attention to the environmental challenges and the fight again the global warming. Higher education is ripe for reforms that are not intended to disrupt its main goals and its very essence but that might help it to modernize its approaches to achieving the up-to-date objectives that would maximize its contribution to the development of the society. Therefore, it appears that governments and the civil society alike should put more effort into embedding the sustainable development principles as well as sustainable development goals (SDG) into the educational curricular of the universities regardless to their geographical location.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katia Frangoudes ◽  
Siri Gerrard ◽  
Danika Kleiber

AbstractThe need to uncover, interrogate, and integrate women’s contributions to fisheries in research and development has never been clearer. As coastal and fisheries management continues to look to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, as frameworks and mandates, gender equity and equality have become a central concern. To fill the still existing gap of documentation and theoretical engagement, in this thematic collection, we gather together voices from researchers and practitioners from around the world, with one overarching common approach of using a gender lens to examine the relationship between humans and aquatic resources. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s classic feminist concept of situated knowledges, we examine the many and varied approaches researchers are using to engage with the intersection of gender and fisheries. Beginning and ending with two reviews that examine where gender and fisheries has come from, and where it is going, this thematic issue includes case studies from 10 countries, engaging in the topic at various scales (individual, household, national, institutional etc.), and using multiple methodological approaches. Taken together, these pieces explore the mechanism by which women’s contribution to fisheries are overlooked and provide direct evidence to contest the persistent invisibility of women in fishing, fisheries labor, and fisheries decision-making. Going beyond the evidence of women’s contributions, the authors go further to examine different coastal contexts, intersectional identities such as age, and explore gender transformative approaches to fisheries development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 339
Author(s):  
Matilde Lafuente-Lechuga ◽  
Javier Cifuentes-Faura ◽  
Úrsula Faura-Martínez

Higher education must include training in sustainability to make all actors aware of the serious problems our planet is facing. Mathematics plays an important role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and at the same time these allow working with real situations in the subject of mathematics, providing the student with active learning. Sustainability is used to make the student see the usefulness of mathematics while instilling values and attitudes towards it. A set of problems have been raised during the academic year that are solved with the developed mathematical techniques, and through a survey, the students’ perceptions about the usefulness of mathematics to reach the goals established in the SDG has been evaluated. The results show that, regardless of the student’s gender, the student’s assessment of the usefulness of this subject in solving real problems improved. It has been observed that this teaching methodology has helped to motivate students and even those who do not like this subject have improved their appreciation of it.


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