Even though Education is most important to pursue the objective of women’s
empowerment, gender imbalance that prevails at various levels of schooling has
been a hampering factor. Besides enrollment, gender disparity manifests in
areas of class participation and achievement in higher education institutions.
In Ethiopia, even if through several interventions, the enrollment of female
students at various levels of schooling has dramatically been increased,
questions like in class participation and achievement remain unanswered. This
piece of writing, while investigating the issues of representation vs.
participation has an objective of assessing why female students’ participation
in class is low compared to male counterparts. Applying feminist qualitative
research, this study identifies that shyness, language proficiency, family
background, instructor’s affiliation to active students, environment, and lack
of value attached to participation in class were having impacts on female
students participation in class. In contrast, representation in class compared
to male counterpart was not a decisive factor. And the researcher concludes
that, unless otherwise interventions to enhance females education in Ethiopia
further investigate the issues of in class participation and achievement, the
so far efforts have been only tip of the iceberg.