It is still too tough for women to penetrate the ICT sector, especially at leadership levels and the female representation in the industry is very low.
This is according to former Sentech CEO, Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, who says SA needs to look beyond attracting women engineers and technicians in ICT, as it also needs to develop women decision-makers.
Mokone-Matabane identifies “prejudices towards women that exist in the sector” as the main obstacle, but says women simply need to be “tenacious” and work harder to overcome these barriers.
She believes SA needs to avoid a situation where its female graduates are forced to leave for greener pastures in other parts of the world, especially at a time when the country needs to produce more women leaders in ICT.
“The country needs to create an environment where female pupils want to stay in the country and exploit the opportunities in the sector,” she says.
According to a 2002 study by CSIR Meraka Institute in partnership with Icteum Consulting and the University of Oulo (Finland), only 20% of the ICT workforce in the country is female, and only 0.9% of IT industry managers are black women, with coloured and Indian women accounting for 0.6% and 1% respectively.
Global challenge
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) high-level panel of experts from government, the ICT industry, the education sector and the media, met recently and agreed that the major problems affecting women include a poor perception of the industry among girls and a lack of inspiring role models.
The panel questioned why women are turning their backs on technology when computer and information systems managers consistently ranked among the top 20 best-paying jobs.
The ITU points out that the lack of trained female ICT professionals means women now account for under 20% of ICT specialists even in the developed countries. As a result, “most developed countries are forecasting an alarming shortfall in the number of skilled staff to fill upcoming jobs in the ICT sector.”
The European Union calculates that in 10 years' time there will be a lack of some 300 000 people to fill ICT jobs in the region; globally, the shortfall is closer to 1.2 million.
Mokone-Matabane argues that “a lot more can done to attract women into executive positions in the sector rather than working exclusively in the frontline as news presenters, call centre agents and sales and marketing agents.”
However, she points out that the country urgently needs to encourage more female learners to take up mathematics and science from primary school upwards if it is to improve its ICT competencies and draw more women into the sector.
She adds that the problem is not just a sectoral one. Besides drawing more women into the ICT industry, she advises, women also have to be empowered across society - and especially at grassroots - in using ICT to develop themselves and their communities.
Mokone-Matabane, who is also part of the President's National Commission on Information Society and Development, says grassroots ICT is particularly important in dealing with challenges around health services in rural communities.
The commission, she points out, has a mandate to promote the use of ICT for development and is gearing up to work with rural communities to promote ICT in the form of telecentres, e-learning, e-health and multimedia centres.
“Rural areas in the country often don't have doctors, X-rays, and radiologists,” says Mokone-Matabane, so ICT could be crucial in helping nurses in remote areas to improve their services.
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