The Minister of Education Eugene Mutimura has said that female candidates’ performance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics courses in 2019 was impressive. He made the remark during the announcement of National Exams results in Advanced Secondary Level on Monday, February 24. “We are impressed by how female students in STEM courses have performed. Having higher numbers this year shows how effective our efforts to encourage girls to embark on sciences have been,” he said. That was in addition to TVETs’ results where girls also performed well in STEM. Two out of the five best performers are girls: Anne Natacha Ashimwe, and Emelyne Igihozo who did Crop Production and Masonry, respectively. 44.9 per cent of the candidates were females while 54.1 per cent were boys. Apart from STEM courses, in overall performance, 89 per cent of the candidates passed. Djazira Umurerwa was named best performer in Physics, Biology and Chemistry. She is 18 and her dream is to become a medical doctor and disregards the mindset that girls cannot do science courses. “It is just a matter of commitment. There is nothing special about boys in sciences really. I made sure I concentrated on my studies, and I am happy that my commitment paid off,” she told The New Times. She, however, admitted that having people telling her that sciences are for boys discouraged her at the beginning but she eventually overcame it. The government has been encouraging students, especially girls, to consider joining STEM courses because they are considered a driver of socio-economic transformation. The subjects are relevant to everyday life and they have pedagogical worth and are of value to individual students. In 2019-2020 academic year STEM students in higher learning institutions dominated government scholarships with 64 per cent of applicants going for STEM courses in university. According to the Ministry of Education, students develop critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills to support better learning in other areas. They also generate skills that are directly applicable to everyday life. Ultimately, they become the basis of a mindset of innovation. Bera Marie Iphigenie, who excelled in Mathematics, Physics and Geography, agrees with MINEDUC that sciences develop significant skills that can apply to real-life situations. “I have seen many successful scientific women who helped in finding solutions to their communities. I want to be a physician and with all this support, I will get there,” she excitedly said. She added that to contribute to the ongoing efforts to make sciences doable for girls, parents and teachers need to support girls and create favorable conditions for them. National Exams whose results were released today were sat by 51,291 candidates.
