Keywords
STEM education, gender equity, Mbeya city of Tanzania, Private schools
Investment in education to guarantee gender equity in most developing countries has focused on modern teaching pedagogy, teaching and learning facilities, cultural issues and the likes. However, performance in private schools do set learnable examples of which if not ignored, a nation in question may take lessons and improve gender equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Private secondary schools may serve as on way to enrich girls' enrolment in STEM for future career opportunities by scoring qualifiable grades in STEM subjects, provided that education investment environment not only favors public schools but also be in favor of private schools. In the study conducted in Mbeya city of Tanzania, the author investigated 58 secondary schools of which 32 were private schools. From these schools 7936 candidates sat for Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (CSEE) of 2022 in Mbeya city. 2232 candidates were from private schools. The analysis indicated that more girls with a potential to enter into STEM education came from private schools, and it is about twice the number of girls from public schools regardless of more girls candidates from public schools.
Chi-square testing of pass in STEM subjects between boys and girls verified that performance in private schools had no gender equity gap between boys and girls. On the other hand, boys outperformed girls in public schools.
Moreover, an estimation of 2202 candidates of which 999 were girls had at least a minimum pass in basic mathematics. Private schools contributed 626 (63%) of passes in basic mathematics.
Thus, appropriate collaboration with private schools might revamp not only girls’ enrolment but also clear gender equity gap in performance of STEM subjects if policy makers in education investment can do more improvement in the environment for education investment through private schools.
STEM education, gender equity, Mbeya city of Tanzania, Private schools
Establishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (UN) in September 2015 placed the world to ensure gender equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education (Koehler, 2016; Leal Filho et al., 2022; Zorzano, 2020). Gender is commonly representing female or male, however, in this study, added to that describes the socio-cultural characters of masculinity and femininity according to practices by individual based on their culture, while sex describes the biological characteristics of women and men (Unicef & others, 2020). In this regard, gender may change with time and place depending on roles taken by women and men, whereas sex never change. Before 2016, sub-Saharan Africa had a substantial number of secondary schools whose quality of education was questionable according to United Nations, this being one of the reasons to launch SDG4 (Unterhalter, 2019).
Some regions of the world are closing gender equity gaps in STEM education like USA, and Europe (Kamberidou & Pascall, 2019), but gender inequity in STEM education is substantial in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab states, and south and west Asia (Ismail, 2018; Loyalka et al., 2021). Emphasis to enhance STEM education in literature has centered resolution on pedagogical skills, low teacher student ratio, incompetent teachers, and education facility availability (Allen et al., 2016; Huang et al., 2022; Teo & Ke, 2014). Moreover, girls' poor participation in STEM subjects in secondary schools especially in sub-Saharan Africa are more associated with cultural practices and other reasons associated with masculinity (Adams & Baddianaah, 2023; Lewin, 2009).
Education policy makers in Tanzania engaged private sectors to run private schools along with public schools (Komba, 2017). This lead to contribution in containing not only enrolment issues in STEM education but also great improvement of gender equity (Weaver, 2011). Evaluation of private schools’ contribution is indispensable, this fact holds following the reality that graduates from private education sectors become part of the nation decent and future human resource capital (Achoui, 2009; Budhwar & Sparrow, 2002; Sebola, 2023). Table 1 presents the performance of students from 32 private schools in Mbeya city. Majority of students in privates’ schools passed in first and second division. Unlike in private schools, candidates in public schools' majority were in the fourth division Table 2.
Divisions | Total | Girls | Boys |
---|---|---|---|
Div I | 715 | 359 | 356 |
Div II | 569 | 270 | 299 |
Div III | 406 | 206 | 200 |
Div IV | 480 | 267 | 213 |
Div 0 | 62 | 34 | 28 |
All Students | 2232 | 1136 | 1096 |
Divisions | Total | Girls | Boys |
---|---|---|---|
Div I | 280 | 83 | 197 |
Div II | 775 | 372 | 403 |
Div III | 926 | 457 | 117 |
Div IV | 2896 | 1711 | 1185 |
Div 0 | 827 | 370 | 457 |
All students | 5704 | 2993 | 2711 |
In Tanzania, efforts to solve gender issues in STEM education is historical (Samoff, 1987). Several bodies like United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have supported to ease the tension of gender inequity in STEM education (Stromquist, 2006; Swainson, 2000).
This report unleashes aspects of private schools’ contributions in gender equity in STEM education following credible educational policies by the Tanzanian government and promotes improvement in education investment for harmonization of public and private schools. This study illustrated by concrete examples the contribution of private schools in STEM education. Contribution is not only an increase in number of students specializing in STEM subjects but also significant improvement in diminishing of gender equity gap of STEM education.
Figure 1 depicts performance in STEM subjects of biology, chemistry, physics and basic mathematics of 2232 candidates from 32 private secondary schools in Mbeya city. Comparable performance of 5704 candidates from 26 public schools Figure 1 indicated deprived performance in STEM subjects. In parallel to more girls’ enrolment over boys, more girls passed every STEM subject in private schools except for physics. However, regardless of more girl’s enrolment in public schools, boys outperformed girls in every STEM subject except for biology.
Methodologies in this study undertook over form four secondary school examination results for Mbeya city, Tanzania. In this regard, this study dealt with secondary data, already processed for student placement to the next education level, in this situation, analysis of sex or gender was not applicable from the raw data. That is study design, data collection and data analysis carried out free of considerations due to sex or gender. Thus, this study is about what is observed in the examination results and not how teachers reach these results. On the other hand, this study calls for more insights as to how these results are reached, which is not the scope of this study. Therefore, the scope of study is to examine whether gender has influence in the examination performance.
The author collected secondary schools’ performance data from National Examination Council of Tanzania. The data involved 58 secondary schools of which 32 were private and 26 public schools. The data tabulated in separation of private and public schools as in Table 3 and Table 4 respectively, indicating number of girls and boys in every STEM subject. The researcher processed the data, analyzed by employing chi-square test for interpretation, and eventually reported the finding.
Gender | Pass in Biology | Pass in Chemistry | Pass in Physics | Pass in Mathematics | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Girls | 1020 (1032) | 549 (544) | 393 (412) | 626 (601) | 1136 |
Boys | 1008 (996) | 520 (525) | 417 (398) | 555 (580) | 1096 |
Total | 2028 | 1069 | 810 | 1181 | 2232 |
The Author conducted data collection by reading and recording from the report by NECTA of CSEE for the year 2022, particularly, selecting all Mbeya city secondary schools participated in the form four national examinations of year 2022. In addition to division-wise performance as organized by NECTA, the author went further by listing overall performance of every STEM subject and eventually bar charts plotted as in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
The author used the chi-square approach to determine whether there was a significant difference in the passing of STEM subjects between boys and girls. The focus of the STEM subjects was biology, chemistry, physics and basic mathematics. The degree of freedom evaluated leads to a critical value (p) from statistical tables, a test statistic computed for each group of students separately, and the decision made based 95% confidence interval. Records of number of passes in STEM subject are as listed in Table 3 and Table 4. No software were involved and all computations conducted manually, aided by Casio scientific calculator.
Calculation of Chi – square, :
Numbers in parentheses of Table 3 are theoretical expectations of gender equity. The author went through five steps to justify whether gender has an effect in the performance of STEM subjects.
Step 1: Define Null () and Alternative Hypotheses ():
: For the students in Mbeya city from private secondary schools, gender has no effect to pass in STEM subjects.
: For the students in Mbeya city private secondary schools, gender has effect to pass in STEM subjects.
Step 2: State the confidence interval:
Step 3: Calculate degree of freedom (df) and state the critical value (p):
, so critical value, p = 7.81473.
That is if chi-square () is greater than 7.81473, reject.
Step 4: Calculation of test statistic , where and , ,
Step 5: Calculation of theoretical pass expectations: Girls expected to pass biology in first cell of Table 3,
. Therefore, the null hypothesis is true.
The author applied a similar testing to candidates of public schools.
With similar calculations as Table 3 of private schools, for Table 4. However,. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis.
The author went further to ascertain every student with a pass of at least D grade (minimum pass) in both physics and basic mathematics and classified this group as minimum pass in STEM. Moreover, students with at least two C grades and one D pass grade in any of three subjects: physics, chemistry and biology (PCB) or same passes in any of three: physics, chemistry and mathematics (PCM) classified as potential PCM or PCB candidates. A collection of students with minimum passes in STEM and/or potential PCM or PCB candidates grouped as potential STEM candidates.
The degree of freedom for each group is three with α =0.05 of which the collected critical value, p =7.81473. Computed chi-squares were for private schools for public schools. In addition to chi-square testing of the data, student performance in STEM subjects were listed in tabular (Table 3, Table 4) form along with plotting the bar charts (Figure 1, Figure 2).
Performance in STEM subjects determines number of candidate placements in high school PCB or PCM combinations and prospects of STEM career candidates in higher education institutions. Out of 2232 candidates, private schools contributed 783 (35%) candidates of which 380 were girls able to further studies in STEM education (Table 5). On the other hand, out of 5704 candidates, public schools contributed 699 (12%) candidates of which 206 were girls with potential to advance in STEM careers in higher education (Table 6).
Gender | Pass in mathematics | Pass in physics and mathematics | Potential PCM or PCB | Potential STEM candidates | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Girls | 626 | 380 | 379 | 380 | 1136 |
Boys | 555 | 396 | 403 | 403 | 1096 |
Total | 1181 | 776 | 782 | 783 | 2232 |
Based on the data analysis, we calculated critical value, p = 7.81473 and a test statistic computed for all students’ performance in STEM subjects for private schools and for public schools. It is clear that , and Recall the null and alternative hypothesis:
Null () and Alternative Hypotheses ():
: For the students in Mbeya city from private/public secondary schools, gender has no influence to pass in STEM subjects.
: For the students in Mbeya city from private/public secondary schools, gender has influence to pass in STEM subjects.
In this regard, we do accept the null hypothesis for private schools and reject the null hypothesis for public schools. Therefore, private schools in Mbeya city resolved the gender equity gap in performance of STEM subjects. On the other hand, gender equity gaps are unresolved between girls and boys in STEM subjects’ performance for public schools. That implies that the gender equity gap shall extend to the future STEM careers of graduates from public schools, and therefore, spread to the whole nation and worldwide at large.
We suppose education policy had had recognized private sectors contribution and further promote teamwork along with private schools then more output that is stunning would surface. Thus, in so speaking, this study saves to encourage education policy makers to enrich policy mechanism for collaboration and possible embolden of private schools for more enrolment in STEM education. This is in parallel with the implementation of SDG4 realization in 2030. It is also clear that passing in both physics and basic mathematics determines the potential of STEM career prospects from secondary schools (Table 5, Table 6).
Private schools’ reflection of balancing gender in STEM education in the case of Mbeya city offers a great step toward achieving SDG4 of the United Nations. The author recommends policy makers to engage private schools to address the challenges of gender equity in STEM education in a collaborative manner rather than existing in with public schools. STEM education stakeholders need to stress not only STEM careers position in the 21st century of job placements but also the importance of passing both basic mathematics and physics as determinants of STEM career for secondary school students. Basic mathematics alone is not enough.
This study is calling for further investigation as to why in the same nation with likely the same environment, private schools outperformed public schools to such great extent. The researcher will explore both parties separately to acquire reliable information to share experiences to avert the situation in public schools.
Data used in this study are available and accessible for reproducibility. Information about public and private schools involved are all associated to Mbeya city CSEE results of 2022. Specifically, the Author used the data published by the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) from all test centers of the year 2022 (NECTA of CSEE for the year 2022).
First, I do appreciate Mbeya University of Science and Technology leadership for their strength and determination. Secondly, I do acknowledge the support in ideas by all colleagues in the Department of mathematics and statistics, to mention a few are; Mr. Justin Kisakali, Mr. Paulo Ngayekamwe and Ms. Tatu S. Irunde, who as well offered their time to work on behalf for some of the office routine activities. That gave a room for me to concentrate on writing. The whole members of the Department were willing to teach more classes, this boosted ending in small teaching load and therefore ability to write. Finally, my family support is indispensable in this task. They have been patient to all my late coming at home to ensure I am okay with this task. I must point out my youngest son, David.
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Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Yes
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Partly
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Partly
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Partly
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Partly
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Partly
Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: Education, Technology, ICT, Educational European projects; Educational Inspection
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Version 1 31 Oct 23 |
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