Employing the National Open University of Nigeria English programme as a tool for the displacement of gender inequality

Abstract

Gender inequality has been a constant refrain among those that desire social justice. To this end, a global conference on gender equality was organized by the United Nations in 1995 in Beijing, China. However, a recent study questioned the effectiveness of the conference to solve this problem as it found that women themselves are giving hegemonic consent to male dominance. This study thus investigates the way ODL can help in mitigating the hegemonic consent of females to the dominant male paradigm. This thrust of the study is based on the argument that quality education should result in psychological freedom and self-determinism by the learner. Critical Discourse Analysis was used as the analytic tool. It critically evaluates the curriculum content of the National Open University of Nigeria BA English Programme to find out if it in any way helps students, especially the female ones, attain psychological liberation towards the end of their becoming free and productive contributing members of the Nigerian society. It was found that in its present form, the NOUN BA English programme is anti-female in orientation. The paper thus suggests an overhaul of the BA English programme in NOUN to make it more gender sensitive so that it can be a positive instrument of gender equality and social integration.