An-Najah National University : Tracking Gender Application Acceptance and Entry Rates

Institutional Commitment and Monitoring Overview

This report presents the University’s systematic monitoring of women’s applications, acceptance, and entry, with annual gender-disaggregated results for 2019–2025. In 2025, women accounted for 51.4% of applicants, 51.7% of accepted applicants, and 52.7% of new entrants.

Institutional Commitment

An-Najah National University (ANNU) promotes equal access to higher education as part of its institutional mission and commitments to SDG 5 Gender Equality and SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities. The University monitors women’s participation throughout the admissions process to identify trends, assess potential barriers, and inform appropriate support. Monitoring applies across academic programmes and supports women’s access, participation, and continued academic progression.

Policy Framework

The Women’s Enrollment and Participation Policy supports equal educational opportunities and continuous monitoring at three stages: application, acceptance, and actual entry. Monitoring assesses both women’s representation at each stage and their progression through the admissions process.

Application share: women applicants as a percentage of all applicants.
Acceptance share: accepted women as a percentage of all accepted applicants.
Entry share: women new entrants as a percentage of all new entrants.

National Demographic Context

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports approximately 2.78 million males and 2.71 million females in the State of Palestine at the end of 2025, indicating a broadly balanced population. This national context informs discussion of educational access, while university application, acceptance, and entry figures come from institutional monitoring. Population proportions do not determine university admission outcomes. Equal access is assessed through fair opportunities and participation, including differences between academic programmes.

Data Tracking and Monitoring

Admissions and Registration maintains application, admission, and registration records and generates annual statistics disaggregated by gender. Monitoring covers women’s and men’s applications, admission offers, and actual entry at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, together with year-to-year comparisons. These statistics are shared with the Quality Assurance Unit and the Institutional Research Unit to inform access policies, scholarship schemes, and mentoring programmes targeting women. Monitoring includes numbers of applications submitted by women, offers extended to women, actual entry at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and comparative year-to-year trends.

Systematic Monitoring through the Zajel Platform

The University uses Zajel for admissions, registration, and student information management. This electronic platform supports systematic annual monitoring of applications, acceptance, and entry. Linking these stages enables the University to examine participation before admission and the transition from an admission offer to completed registration.

Zajel Monitoring Interface

Zajel supports institutional access to admissions and registration statistics. The interface below illustrates the new-student statistics function, including selection of the reporting year and semester. These screenshots show the reporting mechanism; the gender shares are presented in the monitoring table that follows.

Zajel academic information system at An-Najah National University.

Zajel new-student statistics interface with reporting-year and semester filters.

Supporting Equity through Monitoring

Identify underrepresented disciplines, including engineering and information technology where programme-level records indicate lower participation by women.
Assess differences between application, acceptance, and entry.
Inform outreach encouraging women to consider a broad range of academic fields.
Provide mentoring and scholarship information for women, including first-generation students, to support access and persistence.
Review potential barriers affecting accepted applicants who do not complete registration.
Track women’s completion and graduation as complementary measures of progress beyond entry.

Monitoring informs support before application and during the transition to university, while maintaining transparent academic admission requirements. Overall participation figures are considered alongside programme-level patterns.

Monitoring Trend Analysis 2019–2025

The table shows women’s and men’s shares of the total at each stage. The 2025 figures have been approved by Admissions and Registration. Each female and male pair totals 100%.

Year	Female applications	Male applications	Female acceptance	Male acceptance	Female entry	Male entry
2019	47%	53%	46%	54%	45%	55%
2020	48%	52%	47%	53%	47%	53%
2021	49%	51%	48%	52%	48%	52%
2022	49.5%	50.5%	49%	51%	49%	51%
2023	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%
2024	50.5%	49.5%	50.5%	49.5%	50.5%	49.5%
2025	51.4%	48.6%	51.7%	48.3%	52.7%	47.3%

Source: ANNU gender access monitoring series, 2019–2025. Historical values follow the University’s previously published evidence; the 2025 values reflect the figures confirmed for this report.

Indicator Definitions

Indicator	Calculation
Women’s share of applicants	Women applicants ÷ all applicants × 100
Women’s share of accepted applicants	Women accepted ÷ all accepted applicants × 100
Women’s share of new entrants	Women new entrants ÷ all new entrants × 100
Women’s admission success rate	Women accepted ÷ women applicants × 100
Women’s entry rate after acceptance	Women new entrants ÷ women accepted × 100

The table and charts report gender shares, not admission success or entry conversion rates. The latter indicators require underlying counts for the same admissions cohort. Equivalent indicators apply to men. New entrants are distinguished from continuing students.

Visualization

Applications by Gender 2019–2025

Women’s share of applicants increased from 47% in 2019 to 51.4% in 2025. Between 2024 and 2025, it increased by 0.9 percentage points, from 50.5% to 51.4%.

Acceptance by Gender 2019–2025

Women’s share of accepted applicants increased from 46% in 2019 to 51.7% in 2025. Between 2024 and 2025, it increased by 1.2 percentage points, from 50.5% to 51.7%.

Chart source: ANNU gender access monitoring series, 2019–2025. The horizontal reference line indicates a 50% share.

Entry by Gender 2019–2025

Women’s share of new entrants increased from 45% in 2019 to 52.7% in 2025. Between 2024 and 2025, it increased by 2.2 percentage points, from 50.5% to 52.7%. Men represented 47.3% of new entrants in 2025.

Chart source: ANNU gender access monitoring series, 2019–2025.

Key Findings

The seven-year series records gender representation at application, acceptance, and entry stages.
In 2025, women represented 51.4% of applicants, 51.7% of accepted applicants, and 52.7% of new entrants.
Compared with 2019, women’s shares increased by 4.4 percentage points for applications, 5.7 for acceptance, and 7.7 for entry.
Women’s participation exceeded 50% at all three stages in 2025.
The annual series supports review of access trends and potential barriers. Programme-level analysis complements the institutional totals.

Conclusion

An-Najah National University systematically tracks women’s applications, acceptance, and entry through annual gender-disaggregated institutional monitoring supported by Admissions and Registration and Zajel. The 2025 results extend the historical monitoring series and document women’s participation at each stage of access to higher education. This framework provides an evidence base for reviewing participation and informing appropriate outreach, guidance, and support.

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Tracking Gender Application Acceptance and Entry Rates