THE SOCIO ECONOMIC FACTORS AFFECTING GIRLS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN HIGHER INSTITUTION: CASE STUDY IN UNIVERSITIES IN AMHARA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract [English]

At the beginning of human history, the environment favored and promoted equality of males and females. However, as the exposure of males to the natural environment differed, various activities and dangers increased, both sexes started to differ in the nature and depth of experience. Since then, the gender disparity that began in this way was widened by religious, political, economic, cultural and other factors. Currently, gender differentiations are reflected in the accesses to the three precious things of the world, political power, economic privileges and social or cultural prestige. In the 21st century, knowledge plays the leading role and education is the central element that nations can use to maintain equality among society specially to insure gender equality. Thus this paper would attempt to identify the socio-economic factors affecting girl's academic achievement and gender based violence in higher institutions in case of Amhara regional state by selecting two university from first, one from second and two from third generation universities including Wollo five universities will be included out of the total seven universities found in the region. The respondents are selected randomly from each university. The respondents included in this study are female students, gender office, instructors, student deans and registrar workers. The data would be collected using Focus group discussion, interview and questionnaires. To analyze the data logistic regression and two limit Tobit model would be used. Even if there is some progressive trend, the girl’s academic achievement is low and their attrition rate is high. That is their mean achievement below the national average.  From econometrics result it has been found that entrance exam result, parents income, personal related factors, peer pressure the major factors that substantially determines level of girl’s academic achievement. Similarly, though there are positive changes regarding gender based violence still significant portion of girls were vulnerable. That is 20 percent out of the total surveyed girls were violated and 22.59 percent still exploited by the transaction sex in the nearby cities. Besides, the logistic regression  analysis showed that gender based violence highly depend on the personality those girls with strong personality and self-esteemed girls have less chance of being harassed or abused verbally, physically and psychologically.