Although technology in its various forms had already permeated peoples’ lives, the closure of educational institutions worldwide due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic thrust education sectors in many countries into fraught experimentation with online learning. Many educators had to adopt pedagogical practices that were in tandem with online instruction. The pandemic had a silver lining as it opened doors to new ideas and technologies that could be leveraged to enhance STEM education. This paper adopts the desk top research approach to establish the technologies that were leverageable for STEM education during the ongoing pandemic, and to determine pertinent concerns about moving STEM education online. The study found that most institutions leveraged basic synchronous and asynchronous technologies for STEM education during the pandemic. The study also established that a few institutions were embracing sophisticated technology like Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in enhancing STEM education. There were also institutions already training VR and VR experts to meet anticipated STEM education manpower needs. It was established that while the use of technology enhanced STEM education during the Covid-19 pandemic, it raised concerns about access, equity, quality and student engagement.  To address these concerns, the study recommends that governments should invest in the provision of power in rural settings and subsidize the cost of hardware for students. For equity considerations, the disadvantaged should be prioritized in the provision of technology enablers for online STEM education and measures that safeguard them should be inbuilt in the online transition plans. Finally, where possible remote labs should be established but this is not possible, students should be allowed to take series of scheduled physical lab sessions in turns and rules of social distancing enforced. Countries should look to superior technologies for online STEM education so that any similar future occurrences do not stall practical STEM education sessions.

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Women have made significant progress in education through marked increase in enrolment. However, the same zeal has not been demonstrated in STEM based subjects and careers. The gender STEM scale still tips in favour of men in many countries across the world. This imbalance in the STEM fields owing to dominance by men is what creates the STEM Gap. In this paper, we synthesize literature and secondary data to show these disparities. We appreciate that STEM gap drivers are numerous and therefore zero in on what we consider the critical STEM gap drivers with respect to Kenya. We identify and succinctly discuss these critical drivers which are: self-concept and lack of resilience, teachers’ and parental expectations, role models and stereotyping, work environment and family obligations and finally weak scholastic performance. We also assess how this gender STEM gap is likely to affect the achievement of a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) and the Big Four Agenda and in the process, steer the country away from the path of industrialization envisaged in Vision 2030. We explain why it is important to mitigate the STEM gap and get more women in STEM. We recommend that, parents should deconstruct their own stereotypes; teachers should debunk the myth about STEM being the preserve of superior mental abilities that girls lack, students should acknowledge that STEM drives the economy and opens up employment opportunities, institutions should have a STEM endowment fund and industries should institute policies that enhance retention of women in STEM careers. It is expected that these if addressed should enhance women’s participation in STEM based subjects so that they can build careers in STEM.

The challenges of balancing multiple roles of motherhood and learning greatly impact student mothers’ academic success. Having student motherhood obligations on top of their academic responsibilities make undergraduate student mothers unique. This uniqueness affects their ability to compete academically with others. The study used the role conflict theory and adopted a mixed-method research design. It adopted a stratified and simple random sampling technique. The researcher derived the desired sample size using the Krejcie and Morgan sample size formulae. Data for the research was collected using questionnaires, focus group discussions, document analysis, and interview schedules. Data was analysed via descriptive and inferential statistics. The analysis of the study findings revealed that motherhood influences learning in many ways. Student mothers face challenges such as the inability to balance studies and mothering, childcare difficulties, maternal stress, anxiety, time management, and tiredness. These challenges influence the learning of student mothers, negatively affecting their overall academic achievement. The study recommends the need for a special accommodation facility for student mothers at the university to enable them to study more smoothly. Further research can be carried out on the university management’s perception of undergraduate parenthood

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This study investigated benchmarking practices by single sex boarding secondary schools in the Western region of Kenya. The purpose was to establish why these schools engaged in benchmarking, whether they prioritised different or common benchmarking activities, and the factors militating against benchmarking. The study was guided by the theory of the learning organization. The target was 66 (37 Boys boarding and 29 Girls boarding schools, previously classified as provincial schools) engaged in benchmarking at the time of the study. A total of 20 schools representing 30% were randomly selected. Of the 240 who formed the study sample (20 principals, 20 DOSs, 100 HODs and 100 teachers) 215 (89.58%) responded. Data were collected using questionnaires with closed and open ended items, and analysed both descriptively (means and percentages) and inferentially (Chi-square and Z-test) using the Predictive Analytical Software (PASW) Version 19.0. All responses on the open ended questions were paraphrased and others reported verbatim in triangulation of findings. The study found that, schools benchmarked national and county schools. Most of the programmes benchmarked were targeted improvement in academic performance. Both categories of schools had common benchmarking interests and therefore sought information on similar practices and programmes. While most respondents reported it the practice had improved examination results, a number of challenges were pointed out. These were lack of time, lack of resources, too much focus on exams and poor implementation of benchmarked programmes. It was therefore recommended that, schools create ample time for the exercise, allocate sufficient resources for implementation of programmes and go beyond the focus on academics to benchmark on other practices that build an all round student.