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‘Males still dominate Science, mathematics subjects’

The Greater Accra Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms Monica Ankrah, has said male students continue to perform better in Integrated Science and Mathematics than their female counterparts.

She said the 2019 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) revealed that, 60.79 per cent of male students who wrote the Integrated Science and Mathematics had more AI to C6 while their female colleagues scored 52.21 per cent, despite the increasing number of female who sat for the examination.

“In 2019, 18,868 girls and 7,274 boys sat for the examination. This buttress the point that though the number of girls is increasing, the quality and number of passes does not correspond to the increased numbers,” she said.

Ms Ankrah was speaking at the commemoration of the United Nations Day of Women and Girls in Science held yesterday in Accra.

Themed “Investment in women and girls for inclusive green growth” it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to promote equal access and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieve gender quality and empowerment of women and girls.

Ms Ankrah urged stakeholders to come together and share ideas and strategies on how to support the girl-child to be relevant in this rapid changing technological science era.

“Science over the years has been labelled as a course for brilliant boys as some aspect has been termed as men dominated fields, thereby imposing some kind of intimidation to the vulnerable girls.

This major challenge in dealing with this situation is what our society has made it impossible to do away with this myth,” she said.  

Professor Daniel Asiedu, Provost of the Colleges for Basic and Applied Science at the University of Ghana said the University last year gave equal admission to both male and female students, especially those admitted into the faculty of science.

He explained that the initiative was to encourage more students into the university, adding “the university would this year give more scholarship to needy and brilliant girls who may want to study science related programmes at the University.”

BY BERNARD BENGHAN                             

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