Assessment of Practice and Outcomes of Tutorial Classes for Female under Graduate Regular Students in Adigrat University, Ethiopia

Back ground Ethiopian government has committed itself to various national, regional, and international initiatives to eliminate gender-based disparity in terms of access to education. The country is adopted the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) makes member states responsible to take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women. Affirmative action is also provided as constitutional right. Moreover, the current higher education policies are gender sensitive providing special treatment/affirmative action for female students. Objective The study aimed to assess the attitude and practice of female students tutorial class given to undergraduate female students. Method the study conducted in Adigrat University, using institution based qualitative and quantitative approach. The study units were two departments from target population which were selected conveniently. A total of sixty two respondent students used for self administered questionnaire for the quantitative and three in-depth interviews and three focus group discussion with instructors were used for the qualitative. The quantitative data was entered to SPSS version twenty and qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Result both instructors and female students have positive attitude towards the program. And it was practiced in the university to some extent but not considered as duty rather as a volunteer activity. There were also challenges like unwillingness of the teachers and the students, luck of follow up from the responsible body, and luck of incentive to instructors. Conclusion and recommendation despite the contending views on the program it was accepted in the university. Lack of follow up, incentives and unwillingness of instructors were main challenges of the program.