The lived experiences of postgraduate female students at the University of Kwazulu Natal, Durban, South Africa

Abstract

Gender and educational equality have been extensively debated by scholars in South Africa, researchers have failed to capitalize on why enthusiastic postgraduate female students have a higher dropout rate than their male counterparts. This study has capitalized on this vacuity, via a phenomenological lens, to examine the challenges experienced by female postgraduate students at University of KwaZulu-Natal. This study presents the lived experiences of ten female postgraduate honours students from University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2017. The study sought to research the learner's impetus to pursue postgraduate studies and the limitations eminent during the process. The ostensive constraints acknowledged by participants have seeped in socio-cultural beliefs rooted in traditional and religious affirmations, financial impediments and balancing their educational pursuit with traditional role expectations within their gendered familial domain. This study advances the requirement to critique the socio-cultural principles that impede females' succession in postgraduate studies while simultaneously engaging in discourse on the concealed practices in higher educational institutions separating students based on gender.

Contribution of Business Entities in the Fight against COVID-19 in South Africa

“…Summers and Mpanda (2014) corroborate the above findings by establishing that there are more qualified postgraduate males than female in South Africa. Alabi et al (2019) also add that demographics of Institutions of Higher Learning show that women are still a minority at the postgraduate level.…”

Exploring the resilience and epistemic access of first-year female students in higher education

“…Hence, most first-year students are deemed at risk when they enter higher education. In previous decades, given the dominance of patriarchal systems, Alabi, Seedat-Khan and Abdullahi (2019) affirmed that the cultural and traditional dynamics in South African societies were disablements to the progress of women's participation in higher education. Notably, the gender parity index in South Africa demonstrates that South Africa fares very well in terms of female representation in the higher education sector (Khuluvhe & Negogog 2021), in terms of access and success, as female students are largely favoured over their male counterparts.…”