ABSTRACT

Despite the efforts of Nigerian Government to ensure every human gender gets literacy education, gender differences have always been obvious in many urban and rural literacy centres.  This study identified the determinants of gender differences in enrolment of adult learners in literacy programmes in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific purposes were to: ascertain the extent of the differences in the enrolment and find out the extent institutional, home environment, economic, social and cultural factors influenced gender differences in enrolment. The population of the study was 1,223 facilitators and adult learners. The sample size was 367consisting 119 facilitators and 248 adult learners. The study adopted descriptive study design. Data were elicited from the respondents using questionnaire. The instrument was validated by three experts, one of them in measurement and evaluation and two others in Adult Education. A Cronbach Alpha test value of 0.93 implied reliable instrument. For ease of drawing inferences, the data collected were normalized with a four-point scale format. Means and standard deviation were used to analyse the research questions and t-statistic was used to test all the hypotheses at 0.05 significance level. The findings showed that the number of female gender adult learners exceeded the males to a high extent. Also, to a high extent institutional, environmental, economic and cultural factors were the strong determinants of differences in gender enrolment in adult literacy programmes in Abia State. The observed specific limiting factors were ill-timing of the academic programmes towards evenings or weekends, child bearing decision of the family, weak family source of income, and prevalent culture in the location. It is concluded that there are differences in adult male and female gender enrolment in the literacy programmes in Abia State. Also, to a high extent the differences are orchestrated by institutional, environmental, economic and cultural factors.  It is therefore, recommended that there is need for greater involvement and participation of all stake holders in the education sector to ensure that all adult male and female genders attain full literacy despite all the limiting factors.