ABSTRACT
The implementation of indigenisation and Black empowerment policies in Zimbabwe dawned economic and social collapse. This chapter analyses the gender equity concerns in the marketisation and commodification of higher education in Zimbabwe. Utilising a variety of written sources including demographic statistical distribution of population and schools, funding of higher education, political, economic, and social characteristics, this chapter argues that existing challenges in higher education have worsened the power hierarchies, disabling ways through which women acquire the means to fund their tertiary education. The treatment of higher education as a traded commodity to be retailed by academic institutions and to be purchased by consumers has added yet another layer of economic destitution and desperation to the endless list of deep-seated gender inequalities. Hence, marketisation and commodification of higher education in Zimbabwe has been one of the products of mechanisms designed to enforce an elite-driven self-enrichment project disguised as indigenisation. The post-colonial state inherited colonial structures of industrial capitalism to escalate social inequalities. Although the chapter focuses on a single country within the African context, it raises important implications for research, policy-making, and practice in higher education. It also has the potential to serve as a springboard to develop more broad-based, multiple-method, large sample and comparison studies that focus on further documenting gender inequalities entrenched in the marketisation and commodification of higher education and, more importantly, on documenting progress made to address these concerns.
