Only a third of the country’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program graduates are female, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) data cited by the World Bank.
In a data blog, World Bank Junior Data Scientist Divyanshi Wadhwa said there are fewer female than male STEM graduates from 107 out of 114 economies. This includes the Philippines and its peers in Southeast Asia.
In the Philippines, only 36 percent of STEM graduates were female, the same as the Slovak Republic. Brunei Darussalam was the only Asean member to have more women graduate from STEM courses.
“In this digital age, the demand for STEM graduates far exceeds its supply. This disparity in professional choices reflects a missed opportunity. Encouraging more girls into STEM can help fill the supply gap,” Wadhwa said.
Other countries in the Asean who also had a third of their STEM graduates that are female are Malaysia at 39 percent; Indonesia and Vietnam, 37 percent; Singapore, 34 percent; and Thailand, 30 percent.
The top 5 countries in the world that had the most number of women STEM graduates were Sint Maarten (Dutch part) at 75 percent; Tunisia, 58 percent; Algeria and Benin, 55 percent; and Oman, 53 percent.
Lao PDR and Cambodia lagged behind with only 25 percent and 17 percent of their STEM graduates being female. Burkina Faso had the least number of women STEM graduates at 15 percent.
“Among every 10 STEM graduates in South Korea, Chile, Burundi, Cambodia and Burkina Faso, only less than two are girls,” Wadhwa said.
In 2015, another study titled “How has basic education in the Philippines fared and what else needs to be done” pointed out the disparity between girls and boys when it comes to education.
Philippine Institute of Development Studies Senior Research Fellow Jose Ramon Albert and University of the Philippines Professor Clarissa David said more boys than girls are still dropping out of school.
The study stated that dropout rates among boys are twice than that of girls. The study also said boys are more likely to drop out in schools where student-teacher ratios are high.
The authors explained that having smaller class sizes will encourage boys to pay more attention in class. Albert said that there is no ideal number of students in a class, but at the current level of having an average of 60 students in a class, more boys are likely to lose interest in their subjects.
Apart from smaller class sizes, the government can also consider increasing the incentive for sending boys to school through a higher Conditional Cash Transfers.
With a higher incentive to keep boys in school, families will not be tempted to pull out their male children from school to work. Parents will also be more proactive in encouraging their male children to finish their schooling.
