Overcoming policy and practice fragility and enhancing security of science, technology and innovation educational achievement for females in Uganda.

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDG 4 and 5) provide for the attainment of quality education for all, including women. Africa Agenda 2063, Uganda Vision 2040, the Third National Development Plan (NDP III) similarly all provide unequivocal reiterations on the need for the provision of quality inclusive education that will drive national socio-economic transformation. This is particularly envisioned through a robust science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education that fosters relevant science, technology and innovation (STI) knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and competences to constitute the epicentre of the transformation. Promoting the achievement of women in equal measure to men in STEM and STI is critical to the socio-economic transformation agenda. However, there exist gaps in the policy framework and the implementation of STEM education that undermine STI educational achievement, especially for women. This conceptual paper is aimed at examining the fragility of legal and policy frameworks for STEM/STI education and the strategies for enhancing STI educational achievement for females in the Ugandan context. We argue that strengthening the policy implementation of gender-responsive STEM/STI education is a precursor of socio-economic transformation of nations and the entire world. The paper adopts a semi-systematic literature review methodology to examine legal and policy documents for strengths, flaws and implementation gaps with the aim of recommending strategies for enhancing STEM/STI educational achievement for females in Uganda. Keywords: Education; Gender Policy; Science; Technology; Innovation