Girls closing STEM gender gap but biases persist, UNESCO report finds

Girls' performance in mathematics in secondary school is now equal to that of boys, according to the latest gender report from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The report published Wednesday found that the mathematics gender gap favoring boys in early grades gradually disappears at secondary level, and in countries like Malaysia and Cambodia, by the age of 14, girls outperform boys in math by significant margins. Girls had a 7% lead on boys in Malaysia and a 3% lead in Cambodia.

Manos Antoninis, director of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report, said girls also outperform boys in reading, and in middle- and high-income countries, they outperform boys in science at secondary level.

However, despite this advantage, girls are still less likely to opt for scientific careers, indicating that gender biases could still be obstacles to the pursuit of further education in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields, Antoninis said in an email.

“These relative gaps, which eventually transform into career expectation gaps, are ultimately inextricably linked to stereotypical norms about the types of careers that best ‘suit’ men and women,” Antoninis said, adding that when girls perform well in mathematics and science, they perform even better in reading and this may be another reason why girls are less likely to opt for STEM careers.

Antoninis said the report's findings also suggest that more interventions aimed at bridging gender gaps are needed. A review of three countries found that public policies have not achieved tangible results.

“Botswana has had a comprehensive and compulsory guidance and counseling programme since 1995, which includes material on gender stereotypes, from pre-primary to tertiary education. The strategy was revised in the 2010s and a policy, action plan and poster campaign were developed, yet, an overall framework on how to facilitate inclusion of girls and women into [technical and vocational education and training] and STEM is lacking,” Antoninis said.

He added that in countries like Germany and the United Arab Emirates, failure to evaluate programs aimed at removing gender stereotypes has also resulted in a lack of evidence on the success of such programs.

The report analyzed data from 120 countries on primary and secondary education and concluded that the gender gap in learning has closed even in the poorest countries but Malawian education specialist Steve Sharra, who is also an associate professor of education at Unicaf University, said the results need to be put in context, especially for low-income countries.

“The report does not provide data on reading assessments for low-income countries like Malawi, so the results cannot be said to be representative and inclusive,” he said. Adding that the significant gains girls have made over boys are mostly in middle- and high-income countries and more work is needed in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Those gains are not yet being consolidated because we continue to see differences in pass rates in examinable classes with many boys doing better in the examinations than girls,” he said.