Efforts to Patch Ghana’s Leaky Educational Pipeline’ for Promoting Gender Equity in STEM Field of Study: A Position Paper

Abstract

This position paper aims to highlight some progressive steps by successive Ghana governments to patch the leaks in Ghana’s educational pipeline for training females for careers in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Documentary analysis techniques were employed to review the literature to follow the line of discussions on the topic. After the review, it was found that at the end of British rule in 1957, Ghana adopted various science and technology policies geared towards pushing it into the class of front-runners in modern science and technology. Adopting policies became necessary after Ghana assessed the pivotal roles that science and technology would play in its economic development agenda. The Gender Parity Index in the primary and secondary school enrollments in Ghana between 2011 to 2020 increased from 0.96 to 1.01, indicating that the differences in the rates at which males and females were admitted to reading STEM programmes closed up. Through the government of Ghana’s interventions, the gender gap was reduced, a situation that supported the stands of the authors against that of some social critics who were of the view that Ghana is among the countries that are still struggling to patch ‘leaks’ in its educational pipeline for promoting gender balance in STEM education.