Accommodation Status and Gender Based Analysis at Public Universities in Tanzania: Case of Ardhi University

Higher education institutions in Tanzania like many other developing countries are facing various challenges. Among other things, the increase of enrollments, does not comply with quantity of accommodations in public universities. Both male and female students have been impacted by inadequate accommodation. Thus, this study is aiming at examining which sex is highly vulnerable to the scarcity of in-campus accommodation. Mixed methods were employed in this study with a combination of survey questionnaire and in-depth interview. Questionnaire was the mainly employed instrument used to collect data from the selected students. Apart from that, an in-depth interview was employed to collect data from the key informants including staff from the Dean of Student’s Office (DoSO) coupled with measurement and observations to determine rooms quality and sizes. The findings indicate that there is a yearly increase in student’s enrollment: and cumbersome loans and registration procedures which, aggravated students’ accommodation problems. Moreover, the houses rented by off-campus students have no reflection to the student’s requirements and financial capability. Overall, the study disclosed that female students are highly affected by the inadequacy of on-campus accommodation as compared to their male counterparts. This situation potentially makes them vulnerable to health and social related problems, which affects in a great extent their academic performance. The paper recommends that the government through its public universities should involve private investors in constructing more halls and hostels to accommodate the increasing demand of student hostels and to intervene in the search for proper off-campus accommodation for students.