More girls are accessing school, but are they achieving? The factors influencing girls' mathematics achievement in Pakistan.

• In Event: Global Education Policies versus Local Realities in South Asia

Proposal

Although primary school enrollment in Pakistan has increased overall in the last two decades, the quality of schooling for girls and boys remains a stubborn challenge. The expected years of schooling in Pakistan increased from 4.6 to 8.3 years and the mean years of actual schooling increased from 2.3 to 5.2 years (UNDP, 2019). While 59 percent of the net attendance ratio is obtained at the primary level, this number reduces to 38 percent by middle and secondary level (DHS, 2017). Pakistan also experiences what is termed 'learning poverty' whereby approximately 48 percent of all children are unable to read or comprehend written text by the age of ten (World Bank, 2019). In addition to early grade reading, mathematics skills are known to be foundational for academic success in upper primary and secondary education and adult engagement in political and economic spheres (Sitabkhan & Platas, 2018). Therefore, the importance of improving mathematics skills is also shown to be associated with increased individual earnings later in life (Hanushek, 2015).

Across South Asia, the steady strides being made towards gender parity in education are yet to address a pervasive discrepancy in equitable outcomes from schooling. With only 34 percent of girls in the region attending primary school in the year 2000, by 2020, just over 60 percent attend school, representing a 26 percent increase and a rate of access to primary school comparable to boys (World Bank, 2020). An additional tension is the fact that young women in South Asia are more likely not to be engaged in employment, education, or training than young men (UNICEF & UNFPA, 2019). The South Asian girl has thus become "an actively charged figure" upon whom calls for development projects, associated funds, and policy reforms are placed for herself, her family, and her community, thereby "legitimizing myriad state and non-state interventions" on their behalf (Khoja-Moolji, 2018). Considering the theme of CIES 2023, "Improving Education for a more equitable world," this paper highlights the factors affecting a child's achievement in Pakistan's schools based on gender. Our paper, therefore, addresses the pivotal research question, which serves as a proxy to our broader inquiry: to what extent does gender influence mathematical achievement among grade four students in Pakistan?

As our research using the 2019 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows, representing an anomaly in global trends, grade four girls in Pakistan perform better on average than boys in mathematics. However, despite more significant variability in scores and a poorer overall average score, boys are better represented at higher mathematics achievement levels than girls. To interrogate the issue of girls’ achievement in mathematics within the broader context of girls’ access to quality schooling, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4, this paper focuses specifically on the factors influencing girls’ mathematics achievement in Pakistan. The dearth of robust evidence on mathematics achievement is a region-wide issue (Sitabkhan & Platas, 2018). Hence, our paper also seeks to address a persistent knowledge gap in the field and endeavor to understand the extent to which gender influences student learning outcomes, as demonstrated by girls’ performance in mathematics.

The theoretical framework underlying our research question is informed by Amartya Sen’s (1985) and Martha Nussbaum’s (2011) conceptualizations of the ‘Capability Approach’ and ‘Freedom as Development’. Specifically, we are interested in the extent to which girls’ educational achievement represents what Nussbaum (2011) calls an ‘instrumental freedom’. In this sense, mathematics achievement contributes to the cognitive skills required for self-development, meaningful employment, decision making, and full participation in political and economic activities. At the same time, however, instrumental freedoms do not guarantee what Sen (1985) considers to be ‘substantive freedoms.’ In this regard, societal norms in the form of gender discrimination and the denial of fundamental human rights might prevent young Pakistani women from translating educational achievement into the social, economic, and political freedoms required for the enjoyment of development.

Using STATA, we conducted the statistical analysis with the publicly available TIMSS 2019 data set of grade four students in Pakistan. A multiple Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis with five predictor variables (female, parental involvement, resources at home, clarity of instruction, and sense of belonging) was conducted to examine the effect of gender on mathematical achievement among grade 4 students in Pakistan. From this process, we observed that girls perform 0.065 standard units higher than males in grade four mathematics, representing a relationship that is statistically significant (p<0.05, beta = 0.065). While variables like ‘parental involvement’ and ‘resources at home’ have a statistically insignificant relationship with math achievement, other variables like the ‘clarity of instruction’ and ‘sense of belonging’ have a positive and statistically significant relationship with student mathematical performance. In total, two out of the four predictor variables are statistically significant (p<0.05). Collectively, all five predictors explained four percent of the variance in mathematical achievement.

Disparity in young women’s access to further education and employment mirrors the theoretical arguments put forward by Sen (1985) and Nussbaum (2011). While mathematics achievement might contribute to an instrumental freedom - the attainment of numeracy - pervasive and discriminatory gender norms continue to deny a vast majority of Pakistan’s girls and young women the substantive freedoms that are central to their development. Further still, this reinforces how a global focus on the power of the educated girl – as an ‘actively charged figure’ – will remain a misnomer unless discriminatory gender norms also change (Khooja-Molji, 2017). Thus, considering the critical value of early-grade mathematics skills and girls’ comparative achievement as a broad predictor for later mathematics achievement, academic success, and meaningful employment, the reality that young women are still 75 percent more likely to be disengaged from further education or employment (Abbas, 2021) is a missed opportunity and cause for concern.

Authors

• Mia A Chin, Columbia University Teachers College

• Chris J Henderson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Sumit Karn, Teachers College, Columbia University