A survey across the world reveal that a revolution is taking place in our colleges and universities. On many campuses, young women now outnumber young men, and a gender gap of momentous importance is staring us in the face.
This gender gap has been growing for some time now, as successive generations of young women have entered the world of higher education. Yet, no one seemed to see a gap of this magnitude coming - until it had already happened.
A research done by Grace Bunyi of Kenyatta University titled as “Interventions that Increase Enrollment of Women in Africa Tertiary Institution” indicates that the number of women in pursuit of higher education has amazingly increased over the years. The general expansion of tertiary education has benefited women more than men thus reducing the gender gap.
The disparity of enrollment by gender varies by institution, researchers points out, but it is now estimated that almost 60 per cent of all undergraduate students enrolled in American colleges and universities are women while in Kenya's private universities standing at approximately one to one.
This represents something altogether new in human experience since the rise of the university model as the dominant learning environment for young adults. For the first time, a generation of young women will be markedly more educated than their male generational cohort.
Is there a problem with this trend? No. The problem is not the larger enrollment of young women in colleges and universities. The problem is the phenomenon of missing young men, whose absence spells big trouble for the future.
According to the research this will alter “other factors including economic and cultural patterns.” Among some ethnic groups, the disparity between men and women entering college is far greater than 60 percent to 40 percent. Many young men consider the educational environment to be frustrating, constricting, and overly feminized. Others have lost confidence that an undergraduate education will lead to a job with adequate income and stability. Whatever the reason, their absence makes a big difference on the college campus today - and will make an even bigger difference in the larger society in years ahead.
The New York Times offers an unusually candid portrait of this gender disparity in “The New Math on Campus,” describing a radically transformed social scene on some of today’s largest and most historic state universities.
Researchers cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students...
It describes a campus filled with young women who socialize with each other out of necessity - there are just not enough young men on campus. The New York Times notes that this makes some college campuses resemble retirement communities, where women also generally outnumber men.
This is a portrait of demographic disaster, and the imbalance is not limited to secular campuses or students. Even as women now outnumber men in baccalaureate programs, they also indicate a desire to marry a man with equal or greater educational attainments.
This calls for hard question - why is it that so many young men are falling behind in educational attainment? What are we doing that allows or encourages boys to exit formal education at their earliest opportunity? Why do we accept at face value the fact that boys fall behind girls of the same age in maturity and educational level? Why is college now an aspiration for far more young women than young men?
The Newsweek story titled “Women Will Rule the World” argues that improving education for women can have a dramatic impact on economies: the Women 's Learning Partnership estimates that for every year beyond fourth grade girls attended school, a country is wages rise by 20 per cent, and the child mortality rate dips by 10 per cent. And when the average education level of a country's adult female populations increases by one year , the share of women in the workforce increases by nearly one per cent.
The authors of a new Center for Work Life Policy (CWLP) study on female talent notes that women in developing nations are more likely to describe themselves ambitious than men. “But there are more important implications as well, like the reality that, because it's women, not men, who are starting business on their own, the Newsweek says, “not men, who will one day employ majority of workers.”
Why the gender ground shifting? One writer explains: “We have allowed the development of an elongated boyhood and delayed adulthood. We frustrate them in school and then wonder why they bolt at the first exit from the classroom. We allow boys and young men to forfeit their futures.”
The writer, a theologian adds: “Biblical manhood requires that young men grow up, assume adult responsibilities, and prepare for leadership and service in the home, in the church, and in the larger society.”
This much is clear - if this trend is not reversed, the college campus will not be the only place these young men are found missing.
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