Inequality of Gender Participation of Females in STEM Disciplines in Higher Education A case study of KNUST: Ghana

Abstract

The study investigated inequality of gender participation in engineering, one of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in Ghana. It covers the obstacles that Ghanaian females perceive in pursuing tertiary degrees in STEM disciplines, explores why there are or no policies governing females' participation in STEM education by higher education institutions as well as what are the instances of the success of the females pursuing STEM education and how they were achieved. The research strategy is a qualitative method; the design is a case study, which was held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Both primary and secondary sources of data were used, such as interviews and document analysis to obtain information for the study. The respondents were females in the STEM and non-STEM fields from KNUST as well as the administrators of the institution. The study was guided by the 'Expectancy Value theory' and some concepts that provided more explanations to the study. The main findings of the study were that, some traditional beliefs and social constructs of the role of females by the families and communities within the society at large explain the obstacles most of the Ghanaian females perceive in pursuing STEM education, females in STEM education value placed in pursuing the program is strongly influenced by the educational background of their parents. It also revealed that there are no policies governing females' participation in STEM because most institutions believe in having a gender policy in STEM fields, it will rather discriminate male students instead of it encouraging more females into STEM education so as to ensure a fair balance in the STEM participation.