Namibian university students’ views on male students’ educational underachievement

Abstract

This article is about Namibian University students’ understanding of male students’ educational underachievement. Using a pragmatic parallel mixed methods research design, systematic, criterion and case study sampling techniques, the researchers collected data from 807 University students. The researchers also conducted focus group discussions with some of the sampled students. From document analysis, the reseachers ascertained that substantially more female than male students had been enrolled in all public and private Namibian Universities for more than three decades and these female students during this period consistently performed academically better than male students in all the universities studied. University students reported that on average, female students performed better than male students in several fields of study because they were focused, motivated, worked harder, did not waste time socializing in dysfunctional ways (e.g. abusing alcohol and drugs), actively participated in learning activities, worked collaboratively, were willing to learn, were organized, were persistent and did not easily drop out of universities. While this type of gender disparity in higher education academic achievement was consistent with that demonstrated in Southern African countries of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, it was inconsistent with that demonstrated in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia where male students academically outperformed female students. Gender disparity in academic achievement in higher education in favour of males is also prevalent in Sub-Saharan African countries of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. In several African countries such as these, the focus is on how to increase female participation in higher education. The researchers have instead in this article proposed several initiatives on how university, administrators, lecturers, and students, Ministries of Education, NGOs, communities, and UN agencies in Namibia should support male university students who educationally underachieve. For instance, to increase male students’ enrolments in tertiary educational institutions, universities in collaboration with the Ministries of Education and other education stakeholders should put in place programmes aimed at supporting schools in their efforts to prevent boys from dropping out of school, to increase boys’ survival and promotion rates, to reduce boys’ school leaving rates, to reduce boys’ failure rates and to reach out to parents of boys who may keep them out of school because of not valuing education. In addition, universities should provide counselling and guidance services tailored to the needs of male students. Professionals such as therapists, psychologists and social workers could be deployed by universities to guide and counsel male students on their studies, alcohol and drug abuse and on career aspirations.