Abstract
The under-representation of girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in developing countries has been, and continues to be, an issue of global debate. As a result, a study was undertaken to explore factors affecting STEM education including the learning and teaching environment of students and teachers. This paper presents research findings on secondary school STEM leaners especially girls and their teachers located in rural and urban, private and public schools in Malawi. Using leaner (532 leaners:263 males and 269 females and teacher (90 teachers: 60 males and 30 females) surveys in 15 districts, the results show that more leaners 28.3%, 24.5%, 22.3%,11.8% and 3.8%of leaners are in public schools located in urban areas, community day urban, private urban, community day rural and public rural respectively. Most of female leaners were enrolled in public urban (14.0%) whose parents (29.1%) have secondary school education. The most significant geographical variation on factors affecting enrollment came in from the problem of lack of facilities (p-value =0.019), demotivation from pressure (p-value =0.00), shortage of qualified teachers (p-value =0.02), and lack of teacher bridging programs (p-value=0.00. The findings suggest engaging an integrated digital secondary school monitoring tool. The tool has different features for different end-users including students’ profiles, enrollment tracker, school calendar, class schedule, report card generation, assessment and grading, parents’ and teacher’s information among others. The tool will create an enabling environment for quality education by generating evidence on quality of teaching and learning and ensuring gender balance in enrollment. Furthermore, the tool will promote governance with insights generated from the available data.
Author Information
David Mkwambisi, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Malawi
Patrick Chimseu, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Malawi
Brighton Chunga, Mzuzu University, Malawi
Jonathan Makuwira, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Malawi
Paper Information
Conference: PCE2023
Stream: Primary & Secondary Education
This paper is part of the PCE2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Mkwambisi D., Chimseu P., Chunga B., & Makuwira J. (2023) Bridging the STEM Education Gap Among Secondary School Female Learners: Need for an Integrated Secondary School STEM Education Monitoring Tool ISSN: 2758-0962 The Paris Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2023.32
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2023.32
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