Major Barriers Influencing Female Students’ Participation in the Classroomand their Empowerment: Implication for Selected Secondary Schools, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Education is a basic requirement for female students’ transformation and advancement and is the prime ingredient of human resource and socio-economic development. Thus, the present study aims to look into major barriers influencing female students’ participation in the classroom and their empowerment. The researcher deployed a descriptive survey research design. The study also engaged quantitative and qualitative approaches. For this purpose, out of ten sub-cities, five sub-cities were selected randomly. The sample of this study consisted of five principals for an interview, selected by purposive sampling method, 100 secondary schools’ teachers, and 300 students selected by using a simple random sampling method. Aclosed-ended and an open-ended questionnaire were adopted to collect quantitative and qualitative data from teachers and students. There were five focus group discussants fromfive sample secondary schools, each group encompassing five members. The time taken was one hour for each FGD at a different time span. The study was carried out from October 1 to November 3, 2021. The findings show that the insufficiency of female students’ self- confidence does not contribute much to their success in classroom participation. Further, female students are not getting adequate benefits from socio-cultural empowerment. In short, the internal and the external challenges affect in many respects’ female students’ classroomparticipation.