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 .
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:
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:
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% |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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.