First it is important to know how the government works for gender equality, in this case, Lebanon has one of the most vibrant women’s movements in the Arab region. Lebanese women gained their right to vote in 1952, and since then, Lebanese women have made strides in advancing the women’s empowerment agenda. Lebanon’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1997 stimulated an increase in awareness of women’s rights within Lebanese society, followed by the establishment of the National Committee for Lebanese Women Affairs under the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in 1998. Today, enrollment rates for girls and boys are equal. In primary schools, the percentage of women who can read and write is 83% , page 39.

 

In 2016, the Office of the Minister of State for Women Affairs was established to support the advancement of gender equality and women’s empowerment in Lebanon, which was replaced by the government formed in 2019 by the Ministry of State for Women and Youth Economic Empowerment Affairs.

Lebanese women enjoy more rights and freedom compared to women elsewhere in the Arab world. Women in Lebanon can wear more liberal clothes and move with relative ease in certain parts of the country, unlike in other countries in the region. Lebanese women enjoy equal civil rights with men. However, due to the large number of officially recognized religions in Lebanon, Lebanese family affairs are governed by no less than 15 personal laws .

 

Many articles of the Lebanese Constitution stipulate the equality among all citizens. The gender equality and women’s empowerment was stated in the Lebanese Constitution as follows :

The Lebanese constitution promulgated in 1926 and amended does not contain any text that discriminates against women. Rather, it consecrates women’s equality.

All citizens are before the law without discrimination, and we can see this in many articles that determine the personal lives of individuals and the general:

• Article 7 on equality in civil and political rights. Article 7 states: “All Lebanese shall be equal before the law. They shall equally enjoy civil and political rights and shall equally be bound by public obligations and duties without any distinction.”
• Article 12 on equal access to public office
• Article 21 on electoral eligibility
• Articles 2, 9, 10, and 12, respectively, which protect personal freedom, freedom of belief, freedom of education, freedom of opinion, assembly and association.

But the most important thing remains, at the constitutional level, and what was included in the preamble to the constitution that was added to it according to the Constitutional Law No. 18 of 9/21/1990 and which was mentioned in Paragraph B of them verbatim:

“Lebanon is Arab in identity and belonging, and it is a founding and active member of the Arab League and abides by its charters, as it is a founding and active member of the United Nations Organization and abides by its charters and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The state embodies these principles in all fields and fields without exception.”

The Islamic University in Lebanon (IUL), through its vision and establishment and under the leadership of a female president, is a university for the whole nation. The IUL provides equal opportunities in the field of education and shows social responsibility. It does not differentiate between any of the components of the homeland, regardless of religious, sectarian or ethnic affiliation. Equality between men and women is one of the foundations of the university’s vision and one of its most important goals. (new policies file to be approved by the president).

Accordingly, the IUL performs long-term follow-up and analysis of students (especially females) from the admission data (including analysis of student histories, recruitment methods and data collection on recruitment effectiveness) to the development paths of graduates (including different types of assessment outcomes, student success in further studies and jobs, career paths of graduates, employment).

Based on student learning outcomes, a predictive analysis model is designed to track the long-term learning process and efficacy from the time of entry. The findings are used to create a predictive model that serves as the basis for modifying the teaching and therapy process and the distribution of faculties’ resources.

The university tracks periodically and systematically everything related to the female component of the university, whether through the admission or application rate for students, the recruitment process, or also through the determination of the educational staff and body. Every year, the university, through statistical programs, tracks the number of female students’ acceptance, and the number of employees in the administrative and educational bodies as well. 

The university also studies the number of female students who finish their studies completely and graduate, compared to the total number of graduated students. Additionally, the IUL also tracks, through statistical studies, the number of admitted and graduated females, and compare them with the number of males in each of the specialties afforded by the university. 

Based on these statistics, the IUL analyzes the females’ numbers reflected by these statistical studies and accordingly investigate the reasons behind its increase, decrease or stability in each of these specialties.  Furthermore, the IUL sets its plans for every year for empowering women in areas where their presence and participation is less than the other areas or is low in comparison with that of males. This plan includes orientation and support, by all means, the engagement of the IUL females in certain specialties (as engineering, law, etc…), where their presence is low. Additionally, the plan includes providing and orientating females towards integration in trainings, seminars, competitions and different other participation that reinforces their presence and representation in the areas where their presence is low.

The IUL encourages faculties to raise the females’ enrollment quota proactively so that female students are more likely to be admitted. The IUL has proactively provide additional quotas for the admission of female students across different channels. In order to address the needs of female students in all respects, the IUL incorporates support mechanisms into the screening process in the different phases of ‘Individual application’ for university admission. Consequently, the IUL takes into account that the number of women should not be less than 30% in order to initiate these certain specialties or programs.

In order to encourage female students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to strive for excellence, to improve self-confidence and freedom, to reduce their financial burden during university studies and to enable them to study without financial concern, the IUL has set out the several supporting measures as follows:

• Reducing the financial burden on vulnerable female applicants – IUL offers Scholarship grants and provides facilities for the payment of the remaining University tuition fees.
• In order to enable disadvantaged female students to concentrate on their studies, the IUL aggressively raises funds and puts in place various support mechanisms to strengthen the support mechanism for these students.

The IUL annually tracks the number of females attending and graduating from IUL as total. Moreover, it tracks their numbers on the level of attended and graduated in each faculty in order to analyze these numbers in comparison with the males’ ones and on the level of the academic years to study their participation in the different faculties’ programs.  Accordingly, it tests the performance of its plans for female students’ participation enhancement and empowerment and update its plans in order to encourage female to attend and participate the programs/faculties where they are underrepresented.

Table 1 shows the total number of students registered and graduated from IUL and the percentage of the female ones. It is shown that the females form approximately 50% of the IUL students through years’ academic years from 2014/2015 till 2018/2019.

 

		From 2014/2015 till 2018/2019	Percentage
Registered  students	Total	19560
	Female	9154	47.8%
	Male	10406	53.2 %
Graduated students	Total	2745
	Female	1510	55 %
	Male	1235	45%

Table 1. Registered and graduated female students’ percentage

 

The below tables and graphs represent the number of female participation and graduation from each of the IUL faculties.

Economics and Business Administration

Specialty	Academic year		2014/ 2015	2015/ 2016	2016/ 2017	2017/ 2018	2018/ 2019
Economics and Business Administration	Attending students	Total	803	711	812	710	603
		Female	385	333	415	366	320
		Male	418	378	397	344	283
	Graduating students	Total	156	128	120	121	152
		Female	82	62	74	69	100
		Male	74	66	46	52	52

Table 2. Registered and graduated female students at Economics and Business Administration faculty

Figure 4. Economics and Business Administration (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Engineering faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/ 2015	2015/ 2016	2016/ 2017	2017/ 2018	2018/ 2019
Engineering	Attending students	Total	923	945	1067	1019	940
		Female	149	163	217	218	223
		Male	774	782	850	801	717
	Graduating students	Total	66	43	89	106	146
		Female	12	5	9	23	44
		Male	54	38	80	83	123

Table 3. Registered and graduated female students at Engineering faculty

Figure 5. Engineering (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Islamic Studies faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	20172018	2018/2019
Islamic Studies	Attending students	Total	86	65	91	70	49
		Female	32	23	27	23	20
		Male	54	42	64	47	29
	Graduating students	Total	9	15	14	15	23
		Female	5	8	3	9	9
		Male	4	7	11	6	14

Table 4. Registered and graduated female students at Islamic Studies faculty

Figure 6. Islamic Studies (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Law faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Law	Attending students	Total	729	600	683	718	739
		Female	246	237	296	337	369
		Male	483	363	387	381	370
	Graduating students	Total	82	85	128	138	145
		Female	35	27	61	77	89
		Male	47	58	67	62	56

Table 5. Registered and graduated female students at Law faculty

Figure 7.  Law (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Letters and Human Sciences faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Letters and Human Sciences	Attending students	Total	284	246	272	264	257
		Female	245	219	248	236	231
		Male	39	27	24	28	26
	Graduating students	Total	63	43	67	59	69
		Female	58	39	64	55	66
		Male	5	4	3	4	3

Table 6. Registered and graduated female students at Letters and Human Sciences faculty.

Figure 8. Letters and Human Sciences faculty (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Nursing and Health Sciences faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Nursing and Health Sciences	Attending students	Total	505	556	628	950	1175
		Female	294	331	355	606	731
		Male	211	225	273	344	444
	graduating students	Total	21	28	82	68	115
		Female	13	21	47	37	75
		Male	8	7	35	31	40

Table 7. Registered and graduated female students at Nursing and Health Sciences faculty

Figure 9. Nursing and Health Sciences faculty (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Sciences and Arts faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Sciences and Arts	Attending students	Total	460	332	301	232	216
		Female	275	219	194	150	138
		Male	185	113	107	82	78
	graduating students	Total	29	35	65	57	53
		Female	23	29	50	41	35
		Male	6	6	15	16	18

Table 8. Registered and graduated female students at Sciences and Arts faculty

Figure 10. Sciences and Arts faculty (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

Tourism Sciences faculty

Specialty	Academic year		2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Tourism Sciences	Attending students	Total	112	105	95	98	109
		Female	56	60	56	53	58
		Male	56	45	39	45	51
	graduating students	Total	16	7	20	18	27
		Female	11	4	14	11	14
		Male	5	3	6	7	13

Table 9. Registered and graduated female students at Tourism Sciences faculty

Figure 11. Tourism Sciences faculty (a) Attended students (b) Graduated students

 

Economics and Business Administration number of registered female and males are equal, and the number of female graduates has largely exceeded that of male at 2018/2019 to reach twice that of males.

Number of female students and graduates have increased at engineering faculty, but it is still lower than that of males. This is already reflected by figure 34 and 35, that shows that in Lebanon the engineering domain is the least domain attended by female and it was and is still known as male-dominated field. For this reason and according to these facts and statistics, the IUL is strongly encouraging female students to attend the engineering faculty and lot of support is provided for the engineering female instructors and students as it will be shown throughout this section.

The Letters and Human Sciences is strongly dominated by the female students and graduates.

Nursing and Health Sciences number of registered female students and graduates has mostly increased through the past years. During all the studied years, the number of female students and graduates has largely exceeded that of males due to the continuous efforts by IUL to encourage females for engaging in this faculty. It is also worthy to mention that this faculty’s board includes females occupying 5 senior positions out of 7.

Sciences number of female students and graduates has largely exceeded that of males due to the continuous efforts by IUL to encourage females for engaging in this faculty

Tourism number of female students and graduates has largely exceeded that of males.