Towards Capability Approach: Researching Gender Inequalities Represented in Ethiopian Higher Educational Policies

On both national and international level, ‘gender issues’ have historically been viewed as one character of categorical inequality, constituting one of the fundamental terms toward social differentiation[1]. In the context of Ethiopia, particularly in higher education (HE), gender inequality always sustains, even when approximately two decades after the implementation of privileged access policies for women, who has been historically biased. Not only female students are marginalized both in participation and experience level due to gender norms, but also female staff are limited in career development [2]. Therefore, to address the gender inequality problems embedded in Ethiopian HE, a series of equality policies had been introduced in the past two decades, widening the access and participation for disadvantaged groups, especially for female students [3]. This article currently have a basis on capability approach to analyse the reconstruction of gender inequalities in Ethiopian HE equity policies, in order to transform the inequality problems.