TEXT: Pakistan’s educational system needs serious overhaul. An innovative educational curriculum that has taken the world by storm is ‘STEM education’. However, the concept of STEM education is still emerging in Pakistan. There is a significant gender disparity that is persistent at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Despite constituting almost half of the population, women are an underutilized talent and make up less than 10% of the STEM professionals. This clearly indicates an unsustainably high gender gap in some of the fastest growing and well-paid fields. Pakistani women’s contributions are conspicuous in the engineering field despite all the challenges at multiple levels. Closing gender gaps and empowering women in the economy are central to the Sustainable Development of 2030 agenda, thus efforts need to be made at a war footing.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023