Girls who don’t maintain their math and science courses are precluding themselves from a huge number of jobs.
Sharon Murdock, executive director of the Sudbury and Manitoulin Training and Adjustment Board (SMTAB), believes girls should be challenged.
But statistically, they are not staying in the maths and sciences. Consequently, their career choices appear to be in more traditional fields of study.
During the 1990s, women accounted for 57 per cent of growth in university qualifications. Similarly, 59 per cent of new college graduates were women, according to the Statistics Canada’s 2001 census. Yet, despite an overall increase in numbers of women attending post-secondary institutions, the majority of choices remain outside the science, engineering, trades and technological fields of study, which are still male-dominated sectors.
The 2001 Census for college and university graduates’ top ten fields of study by sex indicates the top field of study for women at the university level was education. For women at the college level, the first choice was office administration and secretarial sciences. The second and third choices in both institutions were nursing, followed by business or commerce.
For 23-year-old Milai Pereira, a student in the millwright program at Cambrian College, becoming an industrial mechanic was not her first choice upon graduating high school. Originally, she took Modern Languages at university, but it did not hold her interest. With a four-year-old daughter to support, the job prospects for millwrights enticed her into the field.
“I know I can get a job,” she says. “I like the hands-on aspect of the course.
“It’s not like you’re here for nothing.”
Pereira received no prior information during high school about trades and, initially, was discouraged by her father from taking the course.
“My dad is a mechanic,” she says. “But now he’s happy, because I’m using terminology he’s familiar with.”
Lindsay Moreau, a mining engineer graduate of Laurentian University, is an Engineer in Training (EIT) Inco employee. She is just a few months shy of her four years work experience and approval from the provincial governing body before receiving an engineer’s status.
She is in a career that represents only nine per cent of women, based upon an estimated 172,000 members in engineering associations nationwide, according to the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE) Web site.
Women aren’t taking engineering because they don’t think about the field in terms of employment, posits Moreau.
She believes young girls make career choices based upon their experiences and role models they see and encounter.
Girls just do not get the chance to meet an engineer, male or female, Moreau says.
Within the different fields of engineering, CCPE research shows that environmental and chemical engineering are areas where there are more women.
Inco manager of process technology Ken Scholey oversees a group of 18 engineers within the EIT program, nine of whom are women. He is not surprised more women are in chemical engineering.
Moreau says environmental and chemical engineering are closely related, and women may choose these areas because of theirnurturing instincts.
“Female engineers see themselves as helping out their environment,” she says. “These fields are easier for young girls to relate with, as opposed to mechanical or industrial engineering, because of the exposure that is widely available within environmental.”
The Canadian Coalition for Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology (CCWESTT) is an advocacy organization to increase women’s participation, retention and leadership in science, engineering, trades and technology (SETT) throughout Canada. They said in their 2004 report, Building Communities, that much has been done to encourage girls and young women to take science and mathematics in high school and to enter post-secondary SETT programs. But outreach efforts have not had sweeping effects, as women still remain underrepresented in the majority of SETT fields in Canada.
Murdock says it is not for lack of trying.
“Everybody is very conscious of it.”
There is a shortage of skilled labour in Canada and around the world currently, and it is only going to get worse. Keeping in mind girls, who account for half the population, generally don’t go into trades as a first choice, Murdock says they must be presented with every opportunity to learn about them. She places responsibility for that task upon those designated persons, educators, the media, SMTAB and other organizations.
As a former educator, Murdock says women’s perceptions and their problem-solving techniques are not geared to the way math courses are taught today.
“Attitudes have changed, but we haven’t changed our methodology,” she says.
SMTAB works in partnership with a variety of organizations to identify and co-ordinate educational and training needs of the community and surrounding area.
The board partners with WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Sudbury Chapter and is preparing for the April 28th launch of a Web-based, multimedia project, specifically geared to the youth in Northern Ontario, that will profile careers in SETT.
Recently, they sponsored the Technological Education Renewal Initiative put on by the Rainbow District School Board. There, almost 200 Grade 8 and senior high school students competed in a technological skills competition to promote and profile careers in skilled trades and technology at Cambrian College.
Walking a mile in their shoes Betty Freelandt is the school’s vice-president of student services and strategic initiatives. She says they also receive funding from the provincial government for a program called the School College Work Initiative. The funding pays for a supply teacher in order bring high school teachers into the college for a day.
“Because they are university educated, many teachers have never set foot in a college,” she says. “This helps inform and increase their awareness of the programs offered here.”
Smaller local organizations such as WISE Sudbury are also gaining recognition in their outreach work to inform and encourage young women to consider careers in science or engineering.
On April 16, the sixth annual Science and Engineering Olympics will take place in Sudbury. Led by female science and engineering professionals from the Sudbury region, the event is designed to teach young girls in Grades 4 to 8 about the fun in engineering and science, says Moreau, who is also president of the WISE Sudbury chapter.
Young women will also get a chance to learn about the trades at the Ontario Construction Secretariat Skilled Trade Show at the Sudbury Community Arena April 26-29. It is open to the public across northeastern Ontario, from Sault Ste. Marie to Huntsville.
