Girls don’t need more STEM campaigns, they need the conditions to participate
By Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
For years, the conversation around girls and STEM in Nigeria has often centred on one question: how do we get more girls interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics? And for someone like me who has pushed the SHE-STEM initiative for over eight years, I can tell you that there is more to be done.
A recent baseline survey by the WAAW Foundation suggests that we may be asking the wrong question. The survey, conducted across 10 public secondary schools in all six Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory, found that many female students already have strong interest and academic ability in science. What is limiting their participation is much more practical: the absence of functional laboratories, inadequate computers, unreliable electricity, poor internet connectivity, shortages of reagents and limited opportunities for practical learning.
That distinction matters because we cannot continue telling girls that STEM is their future while giving them little opportunity to experience what STEM actually looks like. A girl who learns chemistry largely from a chalkboard because her school has no functional laboratory is not facing an aspiration problem. A student who wants to explore computer science but has limited access to computers and unreliable electricity is not necessarily lacking ambition. The infrastructure around her is shaping what she believes is possible.
The findings from the FCT are particularly instructive because the challenges are not evenly distributed. Schools in relatively remote Area Councils, including Abaji and Kuje, were found to have greater institutional isolation and fewer engagements with external partners. Teachers also called for regular hands-on capacity building to strengthen practical science instruction. This should change how we design interventions for girls in STEM.
Nigeria does not need another programme that simply visits a school, gives motivational talks, takes photographs and leaves. We need interventions that combine infrastructure, teacher capacity, practical exposure, mentorship and sustained monitoring. A school STEM club can be valuable, but it becomes much more powerful when the students have access to the equipment, electricity, internet and teachers required to turn curiosity into practice.
The survey also found that girls’ awareness of modern STEM careers was closely linked to the presence of active STEM clubs and private-sector partnerships in their schools. This suggests that government does not have to do everything alone. Schools, technology companies, universities, foundations and professional associations can all play a role, but partnerships need to be coordinated around clearly identified school-level needs rather than concentrated around the schools that are easiest to reach.
There is also a data lesson here. The WAAW Foundation team went directly into classrooms and laboratories across the six Area Councils because meaningful reform requires localised evidence rather than assumptions. That approach should become standard practice in education planning.
Before the government decides where to put the next STEM laboratory, computers or teacher-training programme, it should know which schools have functioning laboratories, which have none, where electricity is unreliable, where girls are dropping out of science subjects and which schools already have partnerships that can be strengthened. Funding should follow this evidence. We also need to measure what happens after the intervention. Did the laboratory become functional? Are students actually using it? Did teacher capacity improve? Are more girls taking advanced science subjects? Are they progressing into STEM courses and careers? Without this follow-through, even well-funded interventions can become another set of impressive programme statistics without a clear understanding of their long-term effect.
The good news is that the evidence challenges another assumption: that Nigerian girls are simply not interested in STEM. The girls interviewed expressed ambitions to pursue engineering, computer science and medical research.
The responsibility, therefore, is not to manufacture ambition where it already exists. It is to build the conditions that allow that ambition to survive. If Nigeria is serious about increasing women’s participation in science and technology, the starting point should be the public schools where the majority of our children actually learn. The WAAW Foundation estimates that public secondary schools account for roughly 72–73 per cent of secondary enrolment nationally, with girls making up about 47–48 per cent of that population. That is where the STEM pipeline begins. The question before policymakers is therefore bigger than how many girls we can inspire this year. It is whether we are prepared to build schools in which a girl who is already interested in STEM has the electricity, equipment, teacher, internet access, mentorship and practical experience to pursue that interest.
Girls are not waiting for permission to dream about STEM. Our education system needs to give them the conditions to turn those dreams into careers.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, CEO of Do Take Action, is an independent consultant on edtech, climate change, public policy, and women’s procurement empowerment
