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FRANK MIDEGA: Girls can achieve gender parity

January 22nd, 2014 1 min read

Maths should be fun, and maths is fun. Not that I’ve always loved maths myself. I haven’t.

Primary school was fun, fundamentally because mathematics was  easy then. High school demanded focus and attention, while university maths was just a Chinese puzzle.

This article shouldn’t be considered a poster for pretentiousness though.

But along the stair case I found less and less ladies who would show true zeal for mathematics.

This is truly a problem. Not just because studying of Stem (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses seemingly provides better promise in future careers but more so because I would want my daughter to have that indomitable self-belief that she can excel as well as if not better than her brothers, with equal effort.

In a series of aptitude tests conducted by an airline company for prospective recruits, a considerable number of ladies dwindled to zero going into third stage.

The tests were heavily drafted on math, physics and chemistry concepts. Of course the men were never from the start inherently better equipped to pass the tests than the ladies.

Yet in the end I think a lack of self belief and a defeatist projection predisposed them (ladies) to lower pass rates.

And this is exactly why the feminist brigade in Kenya is a haughty and laterally inspired lot; only deeply sat in comfortable offices but never extending such simple, yet imperative campaigns to ladies in high schools and universities.

If like the Spanish and Swiss they wish to at some point to count a cabinet with as many female as male ministers, they should quit asking for it on a silver platter and move to mobilise the young brains in school to proactively work for it through school.

frank.midega@gmail.com