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Gender gap in Engineering streams is not new. More number of males are seen enrolling for these streams compared to females. In a developing country like India, the population is predominately young and this gap can make a large impact. Interestingly, a noticeable gender gap is also witnessed in students opting for medicine in India. The number of females opting to study medicine is higher compared to males. The large population also creates a surging demand for admissions into reputed institutes and these institutes are few in number, to make it an even ground for students to enter these institutes, National level examinations are conducted every year like the NEET and the AIEE. This present study looks at the statistical data from past five years of these National-level exams conducted for students interested to pursue medicine or engineering. These exams determine student’s admission into IIT’s and other reputed institutes. A significant and a constant gap was observed in gender. In a large democratic country, professional courses like engineering and medicine should not be exclusive for a single gender. Policies and further studies should be made to create these exams and courses gender inclusive

Outbreak of COVID-19, online examination, and e-proctoring have caused more exam anxiety and affected exam performance among students’ studying in International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP). Therefore, the present research aimed to find effect of online test anxiety on academic performance of IBDP students in the subjects related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Study employed quantitative descriptive survey research design and administered survey questionnaire to 200 IB DP students who took online test during COVID-19 through convenient sampling technique. Sample included both first and final year DP students with due representation to boys and girls. Results of the study revealed a moderate negative correlation between online test anxiety and academic performance of IBDP students in STEM subjects. Regression analysis explained 14.1% variation in the STEM subject performance because of online exam anxiety under e-proctored condition. There exists a statistically significant difference between first and final year students’ online exam anxiety and STEM subject average grades. Future research may focus on conducting comfortable online examination methods with no additional exam anxieties. Keywords: International Baccalaureate (IB), Diploma Programme (DP), e-proctored test, virtual examination

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A steady Gender gap is observed with the number of students enrolled in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields in higher education and universities. The underrepresentation of women in the field of STEM is world-wide. Numerous studies have contemplated different factors for this gap and studies on interests showing, that women's career decisions are often influenced by their interest which is inclined towards working ‘with people’ and deviates them from STEM. Men prefer to work with ‘material and gadgets’ which interests more men towards STEM. Increment in “enterprising and artistic interests” among the women, less awareness on the career and study opportunities, lesser female mentors, the duration to become an expert in STEM, lesser encouragement from the opposite sex, has an impact on the number of females in STEM. The gap was more prominent in egalitarian countries and termed as the “education gender-equality paradox”. The difference in early childhood spatial ability can also contribute to the emergence of gender differences in mathematics and science later. This article also suggests more research into making STEM attractive for both genders, providing early education that provides makes STEM attractive for both genders.

Application of robotics is rapidly increasing in all fields of life. Though robotics education became popular in the 21st century, its teaching and training has not gained much importance across the world, especially in developing and low-income countries. There are various reasons for its neglect and one of them could be gender-science stereotypes. Research studies are yet to explore the reasons for its slow emergence. The present study explores the need and training for educational robotics considering the role of students, teachers, teacher-educators and parents, determining whether it is gender-dependent or not. The study also proposes to come up with a syllabus for robotics training. The study employs exploratory, sequential, qualitative-quantitative mixed-method research design and applies purposive sampling techniques. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews, including five science teacher-educators, five science teachers, and five trainee teachers majoring in sciences to understand the need, scope and benefits of robotics education. They recruited 100 high school students, 50 teacher-educators, and 100 parents to test whether their interest in robotics is gender-dependent through Chi-square analysis. The study revealed the need for robotics education under four themes and seven subthemes. It has been found that the interest of students and parents and the readiness of teacher-educators for robotics education is gender-dependent. The study came up with a suggestive syllabus for robotics training. It recommends that future researchers should focus on the implementation of robotics teaching for teacher and school education.