Concerns raised on girls’ dismal performance in STEM subjects

Girls once again missed out on better performance in mathematics and science subjects.

The 2019 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam results released on Wednesday reported female candidates performing well in language and art subjects.

In his speech, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said girls did better than the boys in English, Kiswahili, CRE, Home Science, Art and Design, German and Kenya Sign Language, a striking similarity to the previous years.

Girls who did the 2016 KCSE exams did well too in English, Kiswahili, CRE, Home Science, Art and Design and Electricity.

Similarly those in 2017 class had an outstanding performance in English and Kiswahili, Christian Religious Education, Art and Design, Metalwork and Home Science.

STEM COURSES

Secondary schools offer Chemistry, Physics and Biology, sciences that offer students a ticket to courses such as engineering, medicine, aeronautics and astronomy among others.

According to the 2019/2020 placement results by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), of the 57,687 students who enrolled for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses, 63 per cent were male and 37 per cent female.

In the past decade, the government has been encouraging girls to take up courses on STEM.

Mr Amos Kaburu, an education analyst with People’s Action for Learning Network (PAL Network), noted that girls cannot take up STEM courses if they are neither selecting the sciences nor performing well.

He said pre-determined selection of courses, reinforced stereotypes, ill-equipped schools, poor teacher-student relations and archaic models of teaching are influencing girls’ failure in sciences.

DISCOURAGED

“There are schools where students have no choice but to take CRE because the school wants to maintain a high mean score. That means you automatically have to take two sciences,” he told the Nation on phone on Thursday.

“In other instances, girls are queried why they would want to take engineering courses meant for men.”

On lack of supportive learning materials and structures, Mr Kaburu said, girls are especially discouraged from taking Biology, Chemistry and Physics due to of lack of laboratories to undertake the practicals.

“Teachers should be making learning science subjects enjoyable to make it attractive to girls instead of delivering the content as if they are memorising how they were trained in the university,” he stated.

He said, boys unlike girls, are freer to seek remedial intervention should they not understand the subject.

“A girl would struggle with the stigma of being called daft by teachers should she be consulting often. That would not be a worry to boys,” he noted.