Enhancement of private schools for collaboration to address gender equity gap of STEM education: Case study of Mbeya city of Tanzania

Abstract Investment in education to guarantee gender equity in most developing countries has focused on modern teaching pedagogy, teaching and learning facilities, cultural issues and the likes. However, performance in private schools do set learnable examples of which if not ignored, a nation in question may take lessons and improve gender equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Private secondary schools may serve as on way to enrich girls' enrolment in STEM for future career opportunities by scoring qualified grades in STEM subjects, provided that education investment environment not only favours public schools but also be in favour of private schools. In the study conducted in Mbeya city of Tanzania, the author investigated 58 secondary schools of which 32 were private schools. From these schools 7959 candidates sat for Certificate of Secondary School Examination (CSEE) of 2022 in Mbeya city. 2255 candidates were from private schools. The analysis indicated that more girls with a potential to enter into STEM education came from private schools, and it is about twice the number of girls from public schools. Chi-square testing of pass in STEM subjects between boys and girls verified that performance in private schools had closed the gender equity gap between boys and girls. On the other hand, boys outperformed girls in public schools. Moreover, an estimation of 2202 candidates of which 999 were girls had at least a minimum pass in basic mathematics. Private schools contributed 626 (63%) of passes in basic mathematics. Thus, appropriate collaboration with private schools might revamp not only girls’ enrolment but also clear gender equity gap in performance of STEM subjects if policy makers in education investment can do more improvement in the environment for education investment through private schools.