ICT-go-Girls empowers young girls through education

It is a fact that a sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship as one of the crucial key competences for lifelong learning of the European Commission is underrepresented in European secondary schools. Research reports show that girls are less motivated in pursuing entrepreneurial careers in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), opting rather for traditional jobs.  ICT can provide a flexible and potential motivational environment for empowering young girls in their future choices, their studies and jobs.

The ICT-go-Girls project aims to enhance entrepreneurship skills among lower secondary school girls, by using ICT as the key element. Young girls 10 to 14 will be empowered with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to be able to create future opportunities for innovation and quality ICT related employment.

 

Career Education for Girls

As missing knowledge on the diverse job profiles and routines in the ICT sector as well as stereotypes on the character of people and work in the sector are reasons for girls not to opt for a career in this field, it is important to address the landscape of ICT jobs nowadays, underlining the creative, social and highly communicative side of jobs in this field as much as giving insights into options to work self employed in this sector. This project involves relevant actors from the ICT sector such as schools, universities, teacher training institutions, ICT research centres, educational administrations etc. in Europe and overseas spreading to Australia where research studies can be compared to the European results. ICT-go-Girls focuses on key competences for lifelong learning such as: Entrepreneurship, Digital Competence, Mathematical Literacy and Communication in Foreign Languages.

Including Role Models

This approach of girls to get in touch with female role models is widely used with different formats from presenting biographies of women online to ambassadresses or databases with women available to meet girls during events at schools etc. Here, we would like to underline the importance to give insights not only into the job profile and a usual working day, but to ensure also an insight for the girls into the personal life of these women. Future family life, motherhood and how to combine this with work, in particular when it comes to a male dominated sector, is of high relevance for the girls and their future choice of career. When designing actions with role models, the principle of “the closer, the better” is helpful in terms of meeting in person, but even more in relation to the age difference to the girls.

 

Thinking outside the Box

In order to make a difference, ICT-go-Girls emphasizes on teaching or promotional material with a gender sensitive language and avoids the representation of stereotypes in pictures, story boards etc. used. This is of utmost importance in order to make the variety of choices visible, especially when it comes to gender as well as a professional sector with deeply rooted stereotypes.