WOMEN
IN STEM – SCI & TECH
News:
More girls join STEM
courses in India than in U.S., U.K., says PM
What's
in the news?
●
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said
enrolment of girls in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) in
India is at 43% today, more than in countries such as the U.S., the U.K. and
Germany.
●
He also pitched for unicorns in self-help
groups for women.
Key
takeaways:
●
Number of women compared with men is
increasing in the country and the number of girls studying up to high school
and beyond has tripled over the past nine to 10 years.
Backdrop
of Representation of Women in STEM:
●
Increase
in women participation in
R&D projects from 13% in 2000-01 to 28%.
●
The number of women principal
investigators in R&D had risen more than four times from 232 in 2000-01 to
941 in 2016-17.
●
The percentage of women among researchers went from 13.9% in 2015 to
18.7% in 2018.
●
The increase in women’s participation,
especially in research, is due to a combination
of government programmes and natural progression.
●
Results of the All India Survey on Higher
Education (AISHE) 2019 showed a 53% and
55% participation of women in science education at the Bachelor’s and Master’s
levels respectively.
●
The Department of Science and Technology
supported the Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI) project, based on the UK’s
Athena Swan Charter, was introduced.
●
In the first phase of GATI, 30 educational
and research institutes have been selected by DST, with a focus on women’s
participation in leadership roles, faculty, and the numbers of women students
and researchers.
Causes
for lack of representation:
1.
Stereotypes:
●
The paucity of women in STEM is not merely
due to skill inadequacy, but also a
result of assigned stereotypical gender roles.
●
It is still considered okay to judge the
parental or life-partner status of a woman scientist while deciding to hire her
or give her a leadership position, overlooking her merit.
2.
Patriarchal and Societal Causes:
●
There are patriarchal attitudes in hiring
practices or awarding fellowships and grants etc.
●
Matters related to marriage and childbirth, responsibility related to running of
households and elder care further hinder the representation of women in
these ‘non-conventional’ fields.
3.
Lack of Role Models:
●
Lack of women leaders and women role
models may be preventing more women from entering these fields.
4.
Absence of Supportive Institutional Structure:
●
Women leave the workforce, due to the
absence of supportive institutional structures during pregnancy, safety issues in fieldwork and workplace.
5.
Less women specific science institutes:
●
Only
11% of colleges in India are exclusively for women,
majority of which offer arts and commerce rather than science.
6.
Economic factors:
●
This is another major constraint for women
in pursuing science.
●
Even for families with greater resources,
economic considerations affect the pursuit of a science degree as a science
which is generally more expensive
than an arts or a commerce degree.
7.
Considered as Burden:
●
Families
expect daughters to marry and assume obligations to their
husband’s family.
●
Many families think that a daughter’s
education would primarily benefit her in-laws rather than her natal family.
Such families traditionally view boy's education differently from girls.
Government
initiatives:
1.
Vigyan Jyoti Programme:
●
It was launched to address the underrepresentation of women in different fields of
Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the country.
●
Initially, it was introduced at the school
level wherein meritorious girl students
of Class 9-12 were being encouraged to pursue higher education and career in
the STEM field.
●
Recently, the programme was extended to
100 districts in its 2nd phase.
2.
KIRAN scheme:
●
It was launched in 2014-15 to provide opportunities for women scientists
in moving up the academic and administrative ladder.
●
The Department of Science & Technology
has also additionally established Artificial Intelligence (AI) labs in women
universities with the goal to foster AI innovations and to prepare skilled
manpower for AI-based jobs in future.
3.
WISTEMM Program:
●
Under the Indo-US Fellowship for Women in
STEMM (WISTEMM) program, women scientists can work in research labs in the US.
4.
GATI Program:
●
The Gender Advancement for Transforming
Institutions (GATI) program was launched to develop a comprehensive charter and a framework for assessing
gender equality in STEM.
5.
Women Scientist Scheme:
●
The Women Scientist Scheme aims to provide
opportunities to women scientists and technologists who desire to return to mainstream science after a break
in career due to social responsibilities.
6.
CURIE:
●
Consolidation of university research for
innovation and excellence in women universities (CURIE): KIRAN is involved in
taking proactive measures through the component - CURIE, to develop state-of-the-art infrastructure in
women universities to attract, train and retain promising girl students in
S&T domains.
7.
Women technology parks:
●
Women technology parks (WTPs) act as a single window hub for convergence of
diversified technologies, leading to socio-economic development of women
through capacity building and adoption of location-specific technologies.
8.
Training and capacity building:
●
Several training programmes specifically
for capacity building of women scientists working in various sectors covering
multifarious themes are conducted in partnership with premier institutions
including the National Programme for
Training of Women Scientists and Technologists in the Government that
provided an opportunity to over 1000 women scientists to upgrade their
knowledge base and skills.
Solutions
to increase Women participation in STEM:
1.
Holistic approach:
●
Getting more girls and women into STEM
education and careers requires holistic and integrated responses that reach
across various sectors.
●
Society
has to understand that women are an important human resource
and can play an important role in economic growth.
2.
Private participation:
●
Companies can invest in building female
talent in a multitude of ways, some of which include providing more internship
opportunities for women, giving STEM scholarships to meritorious yet
economically backward girls, and focusing on retaining women employees in the
workforce to maintain better gender ratios.
3.
Spread awareness:
●
Awareness needs to be spread among parents
that pursuing science for girls is not as difficult as it is presumed.
●
With family support and encouragement,
girls can be high achievers in science.
4.
Mentoring:
●
Along with family support, having teachers
who mentor and encourage girls in STEM subjects can have more impact.
●
Mentorship programmes for girls at
secondary and senior secondary levels are the need of the hour.
5.
Make education gender sensitive:
●
There is a need to promote positive
stereotypes of roles of women in textbooks. It is important that when girls
come out of school, they have the dream to carve a path for themselves.
●
Education for boys at school level should
be in the direction of making them gender sensitive.
6.
STEM scholarships to meritorious girls:
●
Scholarships to meritorious girls at
school levels can provide a boost to girls to pursue science at graduate and
postgraduate levels and take up science as a career.
WAY
FORWARD:
●
The
problem needs to be addressed at two levels - at societal level which requires
long term effort and at the policy and institutional level, which can be
started with immediate effect.
●
There is an immediate need to invest in supporting infrastructure,
incentivising institutions to promote gender equity, transparency in decision
making to bridge the persisting gender imbalance in STEM majors.
●
However, schools need to break the ‘gendered notions of intelligence’ and
encourage girls not only to take science at secondary and higher secondary
level but also to pursue their career in STEM.
●
This would help not only in women being
able to chase their dreams but science itself would be benefitted from other
points of view.