STEPMAS Project hosts follow up Gender Workshop

The project for Strengthening Primary Preservice Maths and Science Education (STEPMAS) held a gender workshop on 18 November 2024 to discuss the best method of teaching sensitive topics in science and how to allow female students to confidently grasp difficult math concepts.

This workshop is part of a string of gender related workshops introduced under the STEPMAS project. The workshop was attended by about 20 lecturers at the Sacred Heart Teachers Colleges. Their recommendations will be useful in developing the draft gender handbook that will act as a guide for teachers to use and consider the gender disparities in teaching and learning in Primary Schools in the country.

Discussions held at the workshop has helped to shed light on some harmful societal and teaching practices in and outside of the classroom that contributes to gender biasness in teaching and learning and often becomes a barrier to quality teaching and learning of maths and science at the College and across Primary Schools in the country.

In response to lecturers’ concerns about female students’ inability to perform well in difficult math topics and to willingly participate in Scientific experiments, most lecturers agreed that an effective strategy was to allow for an equal delegation of tasks amongst the male and female students in classroom discussions.