IT quango not doing enough to get women into IT
Geeks in suspenders are not enough
THE GOVERNMENT'S IT quango, e-Skills, should hold employers to account for measly numbers of women in the IT profession, say equality campaigners.
Women should also do their bit for equality by chipping in to a two
month public consultation on its Sector Skills Agreement, which will
decide the IT industry's skills agenda for the next three years.
Annette Williams, director of the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology, said e-Skills should write a gender target in its next strategic plan.
"If targets were in the Sector Skills Agreement then employers would have to do more to recruit women," she said.
The UK IT industry's failure to attract and retain women has contributed to a skills crisis that has threatened its very viability on the global stage, according to research house Gartner, in a report written for e-Skills.
e-Skills contract is now up for grabs. It's consultation is as much about its own future as the UK's skills quango as setting the agenda for the industry.
e-Skills last three year strategy, or Sector Skills Agreement, sets no targets for recruiting women into our sad, balding industry.
Ben Sweetman, an e-Skills project manager, said e-Skills preferred to leave employers to tackle the gender issue their own way.
"We need to generally drive up interest, rather than setting quotas or targets," he said.
But an agenda setting report published by e-Skills itself noted in January that this strategy wasn't working. We need "a new approach", said the report, again written by Gartner.
Many employers "recognise the impact of skill gaps on their performance" it said, "[but] many have yet to change the way they recruit, train and foster".
e-Skills flagship for its current strategy is Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G), an after-school club. The situation is so dire that girls have to be segregated to be persuaded of the benefits of an IT career. It has attracted a mere 120,000 girls since 2005. It will take a few years for this skills wellspring to deliver results to recruiters.
The report card for the next stage of education is no better. Barely 10 per cent of the apprenticeships e-Skills operates with employers were filled by women in the year to July 2007, according to the Learning and Skills Council.
A quarter of "IT user" apprenticeships went to women. But this mirrored the spread of women through the whole workforce, with men taking the higher paid jobs, and women being burdened with 90 per cent of child care costs while working on lower salaries, said Williams.
e-Skills new approach will be determined by its consultation. Williams said it could start by giving apprenticeship funding to organisations that have a track record of getting women into IT, like the Cardiff Women's Workshop.
There are other things it can commit to, like equal pay audits and flexible working conditions. But industry, represented by trade association Intellect (and as embodied in e-Skills last SSA strategy), is still opposed to commitments or targets.
Carrie Hartnell, manager of Intellect's Women in IT forum, might lament that only ten per cent of IT workers are women, but she still insists any change " needs to be market driven". e-Skills left it to the market last time. It doesn't appear to have done much good. µ
Comments
Discrimination
Where are those advocating for more male teachers in primary and secondary schools ?More male nurses and more male Human Resource professionals, if this is really about gender equality, which somehow always means grabbing more for women.
Why are women allowed to dominate certain professions unquestioned with no one nagging them to let men in ?
"A New Approach"
This really annoys me. I've been working as a woman in IT since 1995 and I think a pleasant new approach would be equal treatment. This means equal pay for equal work and doing away with the glass ceilings. But there's also a more subtle form of discrimination as well. Geeks often try to "help" young female colleagues a bit too much as well. Higher expectation and the same "do or die" treatment along with equal pay and equal opportunities would eliminate both the pay and skills gaps.Don't want none.
Women are not, in general, interested in IT. If you look at how society shapes women vs. men this should come as no surprise. Do boys like My Little Pony? I'm sure a few do... But most are the GI Joe type. This sort role casting starts at an early age.In other news : Pope catholic, bears s*** in woods
What the IT industry needs is not more women. It is fewer low-quality men.Over the years I've turned down jobs with several companies not because I didn't like the work, but because I simply *couldn't stand the people*. And I'm a guy.
Governments, please spend our taxes on something more useful. Like free chocolate. (And I'm a guy.)
Power Is Not In The Loins …
Those who wish for empowerment must take the lead [whilst not forgetting that every kinetic has its potential]. It cannot be given. The suffragettes was not started by some macho idiot. Power within human relationships come from femininity. Macsulinity is there only for the show/witnessing/principle. Whilst a “shinning slimy body” can incapacitate, a serene personality establishes confidence/balance. Behind a powerful man is a powerful woman and behind a hen-pecked man is a “loose-canon” woman. Relationships are about the balance between femininity & masculinity [and not necessarily about men & women], the complementing of opposites and not the the charge for supremecy. Unbalanced situations is merely a cry for balance, not the empowerment of any vested interest. The lack of unionism means management becomes mere excretory judgements whereas too much unionism means the lack of discipline [or using discipline as punishment/adjudication/revenge]. Both are striving for control demanding that the other should be a blob of jelly. Problem is, a jelly has no control over itself.Had “communism” not been there, “capitalism” would have destroyed ALL sooner [whilst not forgetting that “capitalism” in most/practical instances means abandonment to greed & fear which is why in practice there is no such thing as democracy]. As it is, it might be a few more generations before the Kraken is taken to task. It’s all about balance for without balance, the Sun will not have a sustainable nuclear fusion. We would not have existed.As such, ANY idiot or lunatic who starts talking/acting about helping/teaching/correcting others is to be discounted and learnt from. Why? Because only Evolution can “absorbed” Devolution, not mental efforts [which are actually part of Devolution itself]. Nature always re-establishes balance and never goes over the boundary - yet. Femininity is The Kinetic/Power/Enforcement and Masculinity is The Potential/Principle/Law and everything is about balancing of the two/working in unison. Truth is not about men or women. It is about Truth Itself which has no gender becauseTruth is Balance per se. Femininity complemented with Masculinity.