Gender achievement gap in the national secondary education examination in Ethiopia

Melaku Abegaz and Hossein Eftekari

International Journal of Social Economics, 2022, vol. 49, issue 8, 1195-1212

Abstract: Purpose - This paper examines the gender achievement gap in the Ethiopian secondary education system using tenth-grade national examination results for the period 2002/03–2013/14. Design/methodology/approach - Statistical tests are employed to determine equality of the average male and female GPAs (grade point average), and equality of the proportions of female and male test-takers in the upper and lower achievement distributions. Further, a panel fixed effects model is used to evaluate factors that affect the regional average GPAs by gender and to determine whether those factors could explain observed gender achievement gaps. Findings - Results indicate statistically significant gender achievement gaps in all regional states and the capital city. The gap has been persistent with a minor declining trend and will not be closed if continued at the current trend. The authors also find that the regional average male and female test scores could be explained partially by factors such as pupil-teacher ratio, the proportion of rural students and access to secondary schools. These factors, however, cannot explain the observed gender achievement gap. Originality/value - The study uses regional data collected from the annual educational abstracts published by the Ethiopian ministry of education. It investigates the trends of the gender achievement gaps across the regional states and overtime at the tenth-grade level. It depicts the persistence of the gap hindering girls from furthering their education.

Keywords: Gender; Achievement gap; National examination; Ethiopia; Sub-Saharan Africa; I24; I25; J16; J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijsepp:ijse-09-2021-0564

DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-09-2021-0564

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Social Economics is currently edited by Professor Terence Garrett

More articles in International Journal of Social Economics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().