Women in STEM: An Endangered Specie in Nigeria

There is a dearth of in-depth data when it comes to matters of women in Nigeria.  Where and when the data is available, it does not portray a beautiful picture.     According to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics [1], the number of male students enrolled in formal education increased from 20 million students in 2010 to over 30 million (an increase of about 11 million) while the number of female students enrolled in formal education remained in the 5 million range with a marginal increase of 4.13%.    The number of these female students enrolled in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) according to JAMB data made available by the National Bureau of Statistics is not encouraging.  From the report, the number of female students enrolled in the Faculties of Science and Engineering in Universities across the country is very low when compared to the number of their male counterparts in the same faculties [2].  Female students, from the same report, seems to register for non-STEM courses.  The situation does not change in the choice of career after graduation.  Presenting the Country's report to the 5th International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) conference in Waterloo, Canada, Prof.(Mrs.) Fuwape, noted an increase in the number of women enrolled in Physics over the years.  However, over a seven year period, the percentage of women enrolled in the course was below 25% [3].  Figure 1 shows the gender statistics in selected academic institutions across the country.

Fig 1: Statistics of some department of physics academic positions

Why do we have few women in STEM?  The challenges facing women in Nigeria are multifaceted.  There is the issue of religion which does not give mixing of gender in public settings.  Some societies see women as "limited/incapacitated", hence, the reluctance to educate young girls.  Williams J. C. [4] listed five biases pushing women out of STEM to include: Prove-it-again, Tightrope,  the maternal wall, tug of war and isolation bias.    There is also the general believe that certain STEM disciplines are in the male territory and difficult for ladies.  

What can be done to increase female participants in STEM?  The campaign to increase female participation in STEM should begin from the young minds.    Stakeholders in the education sector should look into some of our teaching methods and techniques that tends to favour male students.  There is no better time than now to address our methods in STEM subjects.  The mindset that classified some disciplines as difficult and strictly for male students can be addressed by regular interaction with the industry and professionals in the field.     

The role of advocacy organizations and relevant ministries in this issue cannot be overemphasized.  The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World has been contributing towards reducing the gender gap in education through the introduction of various mentoring programmes, research grants, awards and fellowships for females in developing countries.  Also, the Nigerian Women in Physics has been organizing programmes to improve the participation of females in the field of Physics.   At the 39th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Physics, the Country head, Prof.(Mrs) I. A. Fuwape, highlighted some of the plans of the organization for increased female participation in the subject to include:

•  giving recognition to women who demonstrate outstanding scientific achievements
• organize programmes to popularize Physics among secondary school girls
• mentor more ladies and women into Physics in order to bridge the gap and encourage them to stay there.

However, the role the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and the various state ministries of education and ministries in improving the number of girls coming into STEM cannot be established from their sites [5,6].

References

[1]    National Bureau of Statistics: Nigerian Formal Education Sector  - Summary Report  (2010 - 2012) http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/report/271

[2]      National Bureau of Statistics: JAMB admitted candidates by state and gender within Faculty   http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/report/517

[3]     Fuwape, I. A., Rabiu, A. B. and Ogunjo, S. T. (2015), Women in physics in Nigeria: Status, actions, and progress (2011–2014), AIP Conference Proceedings, 1697, 060034.  http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4937681

 [4]      William J. C.  The five biases pushing women out of STEM.  https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem

[5]      http://www.womenaffairs.gov.ng/

[6]      http://wapa.lagosstate.gov.ng/