An analytical view on STEM education and outcomes: Examples of the social gap and gender disparity in Vietnam

•Gender has negligible correlation with students’ STEM results at schools.•Female students canachieve better results than male students.•Students with better background tend to achieve better results.•Students with one sibling are correlated with higher study results. United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4, namely Quality Education, has highlighted major challenges for all nations to ensure inclusive and equitable quality access to education, facilities for children and young adults. The SDG4 is even more important for developing nations as receiving proper education or vocational training, especially in science and technology, means a foundational step in improving other aspects of their citizens’ lives. However, the extant scientific literature about STEM education still lacks focus on developing countries, even more in rural areas. Using a dataset of 4967 observations of junior high school students from a rural area in a transition economy, the article employed the Bayesian approach to identify the association between gender, socio-economic status, and students’ STEM academic achievements, which were measured by the average score of their most recent 45-minute standard school tests in STEM subjects: Maths, Physics, Chemistry (and Biology where applicable). The results reported that gender had little association with STEM academic achievements. However, female students appeared to have achieved better results than their male counterparts when their parents have non-manual jobs. Families with better economic status, parents with a high level of education, or non-manual jobs were associated with better study results. Also, students with zero or more than two siblings were correlated with lower study results than those with only one sibling. These results provided important implications for policymakers to provide women with opportunities for better education and maintain family size so the parents can provide their resources to each child equally.