Goal 1: Identify the current state of the gender gap in ICT in Europe

A first step in identifying the ICT gender gap in Europe was done during the first group discussion at the UniteIT conference in Malta on Oct 24, 2013:

• eSkills: 15% more men than women appear to have higher computer skills then women (14% in the age group 16-24 and 16% in the age group 25-54)
• Higher education: women represent only 23% of Europeans with a bachelor degree in fields related to ICT
• Workforce: women represent only 15% of ICT specialist occupations

Goal 2: Identify the barriers that result in the gender gap

• Barriers that withhold girls to study a career in IT:
  • Societal belief about computers as masculine
  • Gender stereotypes as societal norms
  • Stereotyped media representations
  • Absence of female role models
  • Lack of early experiences
  • Irrelevant curriculum of computer courses
  • Stereotype threat
  • Lack of understanding of what ICT jobs entail

Goal 3: Best practices, strategies & promising programs that address the barriers

• Strategies to attract more girls into studying IT :
  • Increase knowledge about ICT jobs
  • Interrupt stereotypes
  • Improve the irrelevant curriculum of ICT at school
  • Actively recruit girls for computing courses
  • Expose to role models
  • Eliminate stereotype threat and unconscious bias

Goal 4: Guide case-studies of  ICT learning centres that want to take up action by replicating best practices

At the UniteIT conference in Malta, the group members agreed that ICT learning centres have a role to play in:

• Training women for high computer & internet skills, as this is where a gender gap exists at the level of usage, both in the age group of 16-24 as in the age group of 25-54.
• Training women for specific IT occupations such as IT Helpdesk Practitioner, Network Administrator, Webmaster or Webapplication Developer.
• Addressing the barriers that prevent young girls from taking up a career as ICT specialists, as job security of the higher-level ICT jobs is evident and these are the jobs where the forecasted job vacancies are mainly situated.

Case-studies

The ICT learning projects of following organizations have been screened from a gender point of view during the first workgroup webinar on June 20, 2014:

• TEB Youth Association (Spain)
• Information Society Development Foundation (Poland)