UNESCO (2016:2) contends that the low participation of girls and women in STEM originates from a number of factors. Some of these factors emanate from socio-cultural preconceptions to perceptions assigned to women in the labour market that ultimately influence their career choices.
Such philosophies turn to construct views among young people, on the types of professions perceived to be suitable for women or for men. Education, in the form of gender-sensitive policies and frameworks, is important to turn that situation around. The learning materials, as the driving force behind that education, should be free from gender stereotypes, for the benefit of both learners and teachers. The attitudes of learners towards the STEM subjects should be deliberately aligned and stimulated towards sustained achievement in these fields, to ensure easy access for future career choices. Creating the right atmosphere for young women will enable them to participate more in the STEM. Universities therefore need to ensure such an environment through training lecturers in gender-sensitive programmes, running the relevant projects, as well as developing policies that match world standards in that regard.
Since there is a great need for girls and women to join the STEM fields worldwide, UNESCO (2016:2-3) has been working on a number of different projects that are building momentum around this issue. One such project was the establishment and observation of the first ever International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February 2016. UNESCO is also conducting research on girls’ education in science and mathematics, which will investigate their participation globally. Its Institute for Statistics (UIS) is embarking on a STEM and Gender Advancement project, with the aim of reducing the gender gap in the STEM through analysis and development of
new indicators. This will bring about a clear understanding of the dynamics that influence women’s participation in these fields as well as support evidence-based policy-making. The UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) has been working with the Malaysian government since April 2015, to strengthen the STEM curricula, teacher education and assessment for girls and women. All these initiatives display UNESCO’s effort to mobilise the world, calling upon member-states to take vigorous actions to draw more girls and women into STEM for a ‘more peaceful and sustainable future’. South Africa, as a member-state of UNESCO, can also take lessons and advantage of the initiatives that are offered in the effort to improve the participation of young women in the STEM fields.
Cummings (2015:27) suggests that gender quotas be used as a policy instrument that will expedite woman’s participation in the STEM, since it will fast-track changes in the gender imbalances in these fields. However, gender quotas require a top-down approach or else the issue may be controversial in environments such as academia, where the merit system is preferred, even though the current merit systems seem to be favouring men over women. The gender quota system has succeeded in countries where it has been implemented as political quota legislation, in the last twenty years. A dramatic increase in female leaders has been experienced as a result, for example in Belgium, women’s political representation increased from 12% to 36.7% within a few elections. Success of the gender quota system was also evident in the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. Forty-two new chairs have been dedicated to women in South African research institutes and an outcome of positive results were enjoyed, whereby there has been an increase of women role models. This initiative is South Africa’s own effort to achieve gender equality in its research institutes. It is a step in the right direction which actually speaks to increasing women’s services in these institutes. The same programming and policy principles can be used by South African universities to remedy the low numbers of young women in the STEM fields.
Cummings (2015:8-9) argues that programmes and policies that reduce the gender gap have the potential to increase economic growth in developing countries as well as to significantly improve the standards of living of girls and women. This has a great
impact on the alleviation of poverty, thereby embracing good health and wellbeing. Some of the positive steps towards the achievement of gender parity are as follows:
• Quality methods for data collection, disaggregated in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and socio-economic status, as per validated international indicators; statistical analysis development of a centralized database, where quality and integrity of submitted data is evaluated prior to distribution;
• Research on factors that drive women out of academia, especially in science, technology, engineering, agricultural sciences and mathematics, with identification of contextual factors that inhibit career development, in order to design the appropriate intervention strategies;
• Capacity should be built around the science, technology, engineering, agricultural sciences, and mathematics (STEAM) fields, with the vision to grow the economy of developing countries. The interconnectedness of undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate education as well as the employment life cycle within the STEAM fields should be preserved through holistic interventions, funding and resource allocation.
The British Council (2015:4) recommends that women should be represented in all ‘delegations, committees and programmes’ and that this should be done in terms of their merit and not for the sake of compliance in terms of gender parity. The Council also suggests that government agencies and international organisations should provide scholarships for women who would like to study in the STEM fields as well as to ensure that they are exposed widely within this sector. What is interesting for this study was the proposal for different mechanisms that would create awareness among women themselves on the programmes that were initiated by the Government of India. The same awareness needs to be created within the South African youth community in general, and to young women in particular, of taking advantage of the programme that has been developed as an outcome of this study, to participate in the STEM fields in bigger numbers for their holistic development.