‘STEM’ barriers: what girls require to break sciences glass ceiling

Kenyan girls deserve a pat on the back for leaving a mark in the just concluded universities and colleges placement results.

Girls placed in science and engineering courses for university studies are at 36.59 percent, trailing boys at a distance. However, the percentage shows women are registering a noticeable improvement in the seemingly hard-to-crack code of sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics.

At 36.59 percent, this is better than 33 percent women enrolment in STEM at Kenyan universities at this time, according to the Commission for University Education (CUE).

This figure is not expected to change after the candidates transfer to courses and universities under the guidance of the Kenya Universities and Colleges Placement Service (KUCCPS), the umbrella agency for degree, diploma, craft and artisan courses.

Girls also beat boys in choosing technical and vocational courses, garnering a respectable 55 percent. Through this, it is expected that more girls will be training to become scientists and engineers even though the odds are stack against them across the world.

Topping the list of hurdles for girls eyeing STEM is lack of role models and mentors, leaving these subjects for ‘go-getters’ or those nurtured in closely knit circles of friends or families. According to Unesco, less than 30 percent of researchers in the world are women.

Reports also show that those who register for sciences end up transferring to other courses due to various reasons.

Women in STEM subjects have also been found to publish less, get paid less for their work and “do not progress as far as men in their career,” says Unesco that is currently surveying how family decisions, financial considerations, workplace cultures and discrimination shape women’s careers in science and technology. 

While sciences, therefore, have remained a long shot for girls, they ought to muster a rare commitment to alter the status quo.  

In 2014 when Esther Mbabazi became Rwanda’s first female pilot, nothing could scare her off the goal even after her father died in a plane crash, she told CNN.

Although becoming a pilot appeared to be a long shot, it was “my only shot”, she told the news agency.

Soon, the Kenyan girls will be Freshers and it is only grit, good company, and focus on big goals that will deliver them to the science professions as researchers, doctors, mathematicians, pharmacists, and architects

In the KUCCPS results, 24,394 girls and 42,267 boys — making up 54.27 percent of the applicants — will be studying STEM courses while 45.73 percent chose arts and humanities.

But why are girls falling far behind boys in STEM studies? The challenges can be broadly categorised as structural, cultural, or psychological.

Who decides for girls regarding career choices? It is a basic question until we look at the social fabric that may have barred many of them from realising dreams. Why is it that women, especially in Africa, are a poor show in boardrooms and science research?

Why, when girls would be expected to be the better singers of the career jingle, ‘When I Grow Up’? If you attended a kindergarten ‘graduation ceremony’ in Nairobi, boys and girls are at par.

It appears girls live a life of war. They fight physical appearance wars, emotional wars, intellectual wars, acceptance wars, even stereotype wars.

Mothers have a lot of influence on their daughters by way of developing and nurturing them to believe in self. All this to no avail.

Beyoncé, the celebrity, says many women are hesitant to gamble yet it is nothing to do with differences in intellectual prowess.

To change the narrative, clinical psychology expert Catherine Steiner-Adair of Child Mind-set Institute suggests that challenging stereotypical thoughts requires input from home and externally.

At home, the language of parents and other handlers can instil self-belief or raise self-doubt. Girls ought to fight for an environment of independent thought in the race for a more diverse world.

It is, therefore, incumbent upon the few mentors or role models to provide information and literature that help to expose them to critical issues like career choices.

Apart from literature, the government ought to employ career guidance teachers who help the learners to appreciate certain sectors and professions early and respond to worries and fears.

Vocational training principal secretary Julius Jwan says his department, which is working on a blueprint, is keen on engaging teachers to help students appreciate specialisation early.

It is through careers literature and engaging counsellors that students build self-confidence, firming them up to think about solving known and new problems. This requires an environment that encourages making mistakes and learning from the missteps.

While it may be true that mentors are fewer than expected, through reading and choosing friends carefully, a girl can build her own coterie of valued influencers in her journey to becoming a top scientist.  

Putting to good use gifts and talents, the brave, the disciplined, and the committed achieve since, like Virginia Woolf said, a woman has no country. Her decisions transcend family, community and nation.