Take parents and family on the STEM journey too, says experts

NEWS

Despite the tremendous progress towards increasing women’s participation in science-related fields, a significant gender gap persists.

This was the sentiment from a government webinar held on Wednesday to discuss the gender disparities, celebrate milestones achieved by women in the male-dominated industries and encourage young women to venture into STEM careers.

Co-founder and director of Nka’Thuto EduPropeller, Thulile Khanyile said that her non-profit organisation teaches high school pupils research and helps them to find technology-based solutions.

She said that when looking at the inclusion of women in STEM, the discussions and interventions are usually about the numbers, which made one believe that the only reason women are included was to equalise the numbers of men and women.

Khanyile said there was a bigger agenda that needed to be highlighted to ensure that women are able to understand things and problems and create solutions.

The PhD candidate said:

Khanyile, who is also a lecturer at Wits University, said the technology space was dominated by male bias where even the biometrics of these technologies are not recognising black people in their algorithms.

“Technology advancement and innovation are ruling economic development, and in South Africa, it is important for women to participate in the economy and shutting them out will underpin economic growth.

“If we are increasing women in STEM, these solutions and innovations we are developing are going to speak to the population of women,” Khanyile said.

She said the assumption that STEM spaces are formal or that only university graduates or academics can play a part may be true, the general public should not be excluded as people used technology daily.

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“With the work that I do in my organisation, we have noticed that the ability to come up with technological solutions does not rely on anyone having a higher qualification, only bringing it to life may require a person that has higher skills.”

She said historically, women in Africa had been coming up with the technologies for years and the difference was that “in formalised STEM we publish, document and communicate [the research] where anyone can adopt and critique it.”

Mamoeletsi Mosia, the managing director of the SA Agency for Science and Technology Advancement at the National Research Fund (NRF), said it was important to have such spaces to educate and demystify society because the information was needed to understand issues such as Covid-19 and the vaccines.

Mosia said the education and understanding of STEM careers should not start with the students first, but with their parents.

“It starts with the parents understanding the values of these careers and what their child would be doing if they chose a career in, for instance, biochemistry. We need to take the parents and society along this journey.”

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She said it was equally important to engage the pupils from Grade 9 by showing them the importance of studying pure mathematics and giving them the skills to pass maths as it was a basic requirement to enter most STEM careers.

“We also engage with assisting teachers of science and mathematics subjects to make sure that they impart the knowledge easier, in a way that the pupils would be able to understand.”

Mosia said that the NRF was growing the funding for women students which, over the past five years had grown significantly from 54% to 60% with hopes of increment.

On Wednesday other panellists included Anne Chisa, The Root of the Science Podcasts founder and PhD candidate in agricultural sciences, Inam Kula, an architectural engineer from the department of public works, and scientist Zakithi Mkhize, a PhD candidate in HIV pathogenesis.

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