Seven steps to support girls and women to pursue STEM subjects and careers

Seven steps to support girls and women to pursue STEM subjects and careers


This week, a three-day conference is taking place in Addis Ababa, hosted by UNESCO, the African Union Commission and key continental organizations to identify the root causes of challenges hindering science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in Africa, and to develop effective strategies to overcome them and unlock the continent’s development potential.

Critical UNESCO Institute for Statistics data for 2018–23 show that women made up only 35% of STEM graduates globally, with no progress over the past 10 years. Part of this can be explained by the fact that girls’ confidence in mathematics appears to be knocked early, even when they perform well, as a previous blog explained. Part of it can be explained by negative gender stereotypes that also prevent women from pursuing STEM careers. Only one in four women with an information technology degree took up digital occupations in the European Union, compared with over one in two men.

The digital transformation is led by men as a result as we showed in the 2024 GEM Gender Report: Technology on her terms. Women constitute only 26% of employees in data and artificial intelligence, 15% in engineering, and 12% in cloud computing across the world’s leading economies. This is a loss to society.

The GEM Report will present a new advocacy brief at this week’s conference that proposes actions countries should take to redress the balance:

  1. Review STEM policies to ensure they have a gender component. While 68% of countries globally have policies to support STEM education, only half of these policies specifically target girls and women.
    • In the Gambia, there are STEM clubs in senior secondary schools and outreach programmes to raise awareness among female students.
    • In Kenya, the Ministry of Education has organized STEM bootcamps in schools to encourage girls to pursue STEM studies and careers.
    • In Namibia, the National Science and Technology Innovation Policy stresses the need to improve gender equality in STEM and to establish/improve programmes that support women’s participation in science education and science careers.
    • In Rwanda, Girls in ICT aims to inspire more girls to join STEM fields. It runs awareness campaigns, mostly in secondary schools, in partnership with the Ministry of ICT and Youth. Renamed Ms Geek Africa, the initiative is now present in 22 African countries.
    • In Zambia, the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority has established a platform offering free digital skill courses targeted, among others, at women.        
  2. Provide role models, mentorship and gender-responsive career counselling. Girls need to see women succeeding in STEM fields in order to believe that they can do it too. Counselling and guidance can help girls see STEM pathways they would not have considered, while role models and mentorship activities can challenge stereotypes about ‘gender-suitable’ subjects.

    Schools can create STEM clubs and organizations that are led by female students and teachers. They can also partner with local businesses and organizations to provide girls with opportunities to meet and learn from female STEM professionals and enable them to see that their skills are valuable in technical occupation. Female mentors can also improve the culture of STEM workplaces, which can be male-dominated and hostile to women.

    Countries need to include gender-responsive school counselling and career orientation to nurture girls’ talents and interests in STEM and TVET. A key element of this kind of gender-sensitive orientation is professional training in gender-responsive guidance for teachers and counsellors.

    Career guidance programmes should aim to raise awareness among parents to enable them to play supportive roles free of biased notions of gender-appropriate careers.

  3. Train teachers and school leaders to start early in overcoming STEM gender bias. This involves overturning girls’ mathematics anxiety, helping make STEM relevant to girls’ interests as well as addressing their own bias and stereotypes. n primary school, teachers can use gender-neutral language when teaching STEM concepts and provide opportunities for girls to explore STEM activities. They can also invite female STEM professionals to speak to the class.                              
  4. Enhance girls’ digital literacy to close the skills gender gap. Establish a framework of digital competences that provides guidance for the skills all learners should acquire, no matter their gender.

  5. Review teaching and learning materials for negative gender bias on ‘appropriate’ study choices. Biased gender norms and stereotypes embedded in curricula and textbooks influence girls’ choices of what to study and what careers to pursue, risking the reproduction and reinforcement of traditional, discriminatory gender norms that negatively impact students’ interests and aspirations. Men are more likely to be represented in textbooks as science professionals, by name or in illustrations, while women are more likely to be depicted in care occupations. Children are likely to internalize these stereotypes, which influence their attitudes and aspirations.
  6. Cross-sectoral, holistic approaches can help address gender gaps in STEM. Germany provides two examples that represent a collaboration between the ministries of women, youth, labour and social affairs. The platform Komm-mach-MINT (Come do STEM) is an online information hub intended to help girls and women choose further STEM study and careers. It provides information on STEM for secondary and university students, parents, teachers and organizations. Klischeefrei (Cliché free), launched in 2017, aims to remove gender stereotypes in all career and study paths for girls and boys starting from the pre-primary level all the way up to university and employment. It offers materials for teachers and counsellors to use in their classes.
  7. Work with non-state actors…
    • to assure gender-sensitive digital transformation and address gender stereotypes in algorithms.
    • to encourage STEM participation among girls and women through formal and non-formal education. Non-state actors often run initiatives and programmes on school and career counselling, for instance, that help students make informed choices, free of gender bias, focusing on gender-responsive learning materials and practices that reinforce the idea that women can join any profession. Non-state actors can boost girls’ interest in science through classroom interventions and extracurricular activities, such as museum visits and contests.
Further reading:
  • Download the advocacy brief to read which countries are reflecting these recommendations in their policies.
  • Download the 2024 GEM Gender Report to read about the importance of gender balance in STEM subjects for gender balance in the digital transformation.

 



Source link