The Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Hon. Prof.Hlengiwe Mkhize will honour an International Girls in ICT Day on Friday.
The ITU 2015 theme is “Expanding Horizons, Changing Attitudes”. The Deputy Minister will emphasize the value of investing in techno-girls for entrepreneurial and economic inclusion agenda.
The Department will host the event in partnership with Telkom, the Arup Education Trust, Intel and the South African Communications Forum.
The International Girls in ICT Day is an initiative that is backed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Member States in Plenipotentiary Resolution 70 (Rev. Busan, 2014) to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider studies and careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
The purpose of this day is to make girls and young women aware of the vast possibilities that are offered by the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s). Female role models occupying senior positions in the ICT sector will share with the learners their personal journeys on how they got to where they are today in Sector.
The participants will be girls from grades 10 to 12. Their participation will be in the form of a Children's Assembly.
A study conducted by the European Commission, predicted a skills gap of over a half million ICT jobs in Europe and countries like Brazil were expected to run short of about 200,000 professionally trained ICT workers by 2013. This is because not enough students are preparing themselves for studies in math, engineering, computing, and sciences. Compounding this problem, the number of female technical students which is disproportionately low.
The lack of young women attracted to ICT studies is reflected in ICT companies and government agencies around the world. The ICT sector is currently male dominated, especially at senior levels. Where women are present, it is often in low-level, low-skilled jobs.
The assembly will also amongst other things include discussions by the girls on the pros and cons of having access to mobile phones within schools and/or during classes.
Members of the media are invited to attend. (Confirmation of attendance is required).
Date: 24 April 2015
Time: 9h00 to 13h30
Venue: KwaMhlanga Secondary School, Mpumalanga
