The lived experiences of postgraduate female students at the University of Kwazulu Natal, Durban, South Africa

Abstract

Gender and educational equality have been extensively debated by scholars in South Africa, researchers have failed to capitalize on why enthusiastic postgraduate female students have a higher dropout rate than their male counterparts. This study has capitalized on this vacuity, via a phenomenological lens, to examine the challenges experienced by female postgraduate students at University of KwaZulu-Natal. This study presents the lived experiences of ten female postgraduate honours students from University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2017. The study sought to research the learner's impetus to pursue postgraduate studies and the limitations eminent during the process. The ostensive constraints acknowledged by participants have seeped in socio-cultural beliefs rooted in traditional and religious affirmations, financial impediments and balancing their educational pursuit with traditional role expectations within their gendered familial domain. This study advances the requirement to critique the socio-cultural principles that impede females' succession in postgraduate studies while simultaneously engaging in discourse on the concealed practices in higher educational institutions separating students based on gender.