Promoting female enrolment in engineering education for diversity, equality and inclusiveness in the South Pacific Islands

Females have always been found to play a significant role in decision making. Therefore, encouraging their enrolment in engineering would boost gender friendly participation in engineering disciplines. However, there is a paucity of information on this subject especially in the South Pacific Islands. This present work focuses on the female enrolment distribution in engineering disciplines for a period of five years in one of the universities in the South Pacific Islands. Descriptive and Mann-Whitney U test analyses were carried out on data obtained on engineering students’ enrolment from the College of Engineering, Science and Technology of the university in order to carry out quasi-experimental research on female enrolment. Results show that females are underrepresented in engineering disciplines. The outcome strongly indicates that the male distribution in the engineering disciplines is significantly different from the female distribution during the period considered. Appropriate strategies are hereby suggested to improve enrolment of females in engineering disciplines in order to promote diversity, equality and inclusiveness (DEI) especially in the South Pacific Islands. This will in turn help in national resource planning and formulation of policies capable of promoting DEI in engineering education.