The global campaign “TECH needs girls”, implemented in Republic of Macedonia on the initiative of the Deputy Minister for Information Society and Administration, Mrs. Marta Arsovska Tomovska, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science, MASIT (Macedonian ICT Chamber of Commerce) and FINKI (faculty of Computer Science and Engineering), after only 5 months form its promotion, has already shown results.
The campaign started with a celebration of the “Girls in ICT day” in April this year. Hundreds girls - high school students were included in the activities, while the media helped in spreading the “TECH needs girls” message to thousands of other across the country. The good idea was immediately embraced from the largest ICT companies in Macedonia, such as T-home and T-mobile, Ericsson, Seavus, Semos, Ultra, Nextsense, Netcetera, Asseco SEE, which contributed in the campaign’s realization.
Photos here.
As part of the activities, in September 2012 free trainings for programming, designing, computer animation and network administration were awarded to girls – students of the generation from several elementary schools in Skopje.
We are very delighted to point out the fact that this campaign, together with the one from the Ministry of Education and Science which stimulates the enrollment on technical faculties, represented a significant contribution for raising awareness between young populations to continue the education on ICT faculties.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Science, obtained from enrollment terms for academic 2012 – 2013, from the total number of students enrolled on first year university studies on state and private ICT faculties in the Republic of Macedonia, 73, 4% are male, while 26, 6% are female. Compared to the 76, 1% male and 23, 9 % female from the last 2011 – 2012 academic year, it is an increase of 2, 7% for female students!
The results themselves clearly show that we succeeded in encouraging girls to enroll on ICT faculties. In a future perspective, that will enable gender representation balance, but what is most important is that the total number of ICT work force in the Republic of Macedonia will increase.
In the future, the “Girls in ICT” concept will surly represent a great stimulus for further creating and opening new possibilities, opportunities and horizons, accesses to fresh knowledge and of course, recognizing young talents and benevolent investing in their capacities.
