Almost half of the world’s population is female, but STEM fields don’t reflect that. The 2024 UN Global Education Monitoring Report on gender found that nearly 35 percent of STEM college graduates were women. The share has not increased significantly in more than a decade.
When it comes to STEM jobs, the percentage is much lower. Women will make up about 28 percent of the global STEM workforce by 2024, according to the World Economic Forum.
There are many factors behind this disparity, including a lack of family support, some teachers only encouraging boys to pursue STEM subjects, and a lack of female role models.
But one force is at play long before college majors are considered: limited access to STEM-focused educational resources for pre-university students. Especially for students in rural communities, limited access reduces interest in STEM subjects before interest takes root. Although lack of opportunities affects boys and girls alike, when combined with other factors it can have a greater impact on girls in some rural regions.
IEEE Fellow Rajiv Joshi is one of the founders of the Women in Science, Engineering project. He is the principal scientist and founding principal at the IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY.Rajiv Joshi
One such place is rural India. The challenges of pursuing a STEM education—or any education at all—increase as girls in rural India move into their teenage years. Social barriers including early marriage, traditional gender roles, and family expectations for financial support contribute to girls dropping out of school, according to the Mahadev Maitri Foundation, a non-governmental organization that focuses on the education of children in underdeveloped areas. The dropout rate for girls increases between the ages of 11 and 14, on average.
The trend is something IEEE Fellow Rajiv Joshi and IEEE Senior Member Rajesh Zele want to change. A shared passion to keep girls in rural India out of school and on the path to STEM careers led to the launch of the Women in Science, Engineering (WiSE) project.
“The talent is there all over the world, but the opportunity is not,” said Joshi. “WiSE is one way to expand the possibilities.”
Bringing the WiSE vision to life
Joshi, the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) industry vice president, is a principal scientist and principal inventor at the IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY Zele is a professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), in suburban Mumbai.
They presented their proposal for a three-year plan to the community board of governors in 2022 and received a grant of US $80,000.
The outline
WiSE was a five-day study program conducted at the IIT-B campus. Starting in 2023, it lasted three years and was held in the last week of March. A new group of 160 to 200 girls from rural areas and states of Maharashtra and Karnataka attended each year.
The event was divided into two parts: continuous learning through the Break-Make-Program (BMP) and presentations by influential Indian women role models.
Zele, project manager Arti Auti, several members of IIT-B, and about 70 student volunteers from the institute presided over the program.
Choosing the first batch
With the funding secured, Zele and his team in India got busy selecting who will attend the first class of 2023. They reached out to the management of 68 schools in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Although the two states are among the most urbanized in the country, each has many rural areas where educating young girls competes with early marriage and the pressure of family support.
Teachers identified girls with high scores in math and science, and community leaders recommended students who could benefit from the program.
Then communication with their parents began. Adults had to take their time, not just give their daughters permission to go there. They participated in quarterly online meetings involving the girls’ teachers, IIT-B student advisors, and other program volunteers after the week was over. Entry made parents commit to supporting their daughters’ progress in school. The commitment to join the meetings would last at least four years after their daughter’s participation in the program ended.
Hands-on learning is important
Participants stay in one of the center’s dormitories for a week and attend sessions held Monday through Friday.
They worked together in small groups to create objects based on STEM concepts. The groups were supervised by Arti, IIT-B faculty, and student volunteers.
Joshi says, “The idea behind BMP was to give girls the opportunity to take apart a gadget, then rebuild it, fix it, or come up with a completely new idea.”
Sessions include working with bioluminescence and bacteria (introducing participants to biology and microbiology), learning about autonomous underwater vehicles, and building a remote-controlled robot. Building the robots was a highlight, allowing the girls to consolidate the mechanical and electronic engineering skills they had been working on all week.
Building kits created by students in Zele’s Advanced Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab. Girls and teachers are allowed to take the kits home to continue learning and spread STEM awareness.
“Many girls use those kits in various events to show their STEM skills to others,” said Joshi. One was Sushi Pawar, who built a drone during WiSE, then demonstrated it to a national audience.
“I presented the 2024 drone project to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during Pariksha Pe Charcha,” Pawar said. That initiative is an annual event open to students in grades 6 through 12, their teachers and parents. The focus is on helping students manage stress during exams with fun and engaging activities. The event is sponsored by the Indian Ministry of Education and hosted by the prime minister.
Each year, millions of students complete an online multiple-choice test to qualify to go in person and meet the prime minister. By 2024 there are about 4,000 participants.
Motivation as a foundation
WiSE was more than hands-on learning. It also featured daily presentations from “Winspirers”: Indian women who have achieved success in their lives or have STEM careers. They included scientists, doctors, military officers, professors and other women who overcame obstacles.
The first such speaker was Savita Dakle, a farmer from Maharashtra who dropped out of school after grade 10, got married, and had two children.
Despite having little knowledge of farming, she learned quickly and built a cooperative of 400 women farmers in her village. Teach them to use mobile phones and social media to share information and resources.
Today, that alliance has more than 1 million members in two online communities. They share tips on market pricing, planting, and more.
Zele says he sees Dakle as the ideal Winspirer: someone who builds a thriving business with few resources and no academic or work credentials.
Dakle reflects the challenges many of the program’s participants face, she says, noting that many girls face pressure to leave school early to get married or support their families financially. She says she is living proof that there are no circumstances for a girl that explain what might happen.
The practical impact of WiSE
No empirical data is currently available to measure the success of the project, but feedback from participants shows that the program has made a difference. Many from the class of 2023 stayed in school and are now pursuing higher education.
Participant Tejswini Manoj Patil credits the initiative with boosting his confidence in science and math.
He says: “Before WiSE, I was interested in STEM but was intimidated by the complexity of the subjects. After participating, my interest went from curiosity to practical confidence.”
Meeting female role models was important, attendee Ritu Ravindra Patil says, adding: “WiSE completely changed my perspective, and meeting Winspirers inspired me to pursue higher education.”
This project opened career ideas for others.
“Before WiSE, I wanted to be a doctor,” says Pallavi Bharti. “I believed that engineering was too stressful and boring. When I joined the program and checked out IIT-B, I was surprised. Everyone was friendly and supportive, and the students’ passion for their work inspired me. All those experiences gave me the confidence to take math classes and become an engineer.”
What’s next?
The program ended last year, but the framework it built lives on. Like-minded groups have adopted parts of the concept, Joshi said.
The IEEE CASS chapters in Bangalore and Kerala are likely to be among the first to take forward the ideas of the program, he said.
Alex James, senior IEEE member and founding chairman of the IEEE CASS Kerala chapter, has adapted the framework for use in his region, Joshi said. James is a professor of AI hardware and lecturer at Digital University Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram.
Joshi guided James as WiSE concepts were implemented.
IEEE Senior Members Jayesh Tanwani and Suman Dwivedi from the IEEE CASS Bangalore chapter are likely to bring programming concepts to their work, Joshi said.
Tanwani, chairman of the Bangalore chapter, is a system-on-a-chip engineering manager at Intel in Bengaluru. Dwivedi is a senior manager at Synopsys in Bengaluru. They bring STEM access to remote schools in Karnataka.
Joshi and Zele say they hope to see the concept expand beyond India.
“We want to spread this to other continents and see how we can integrate WiSE into new or existing programs in those areas,” said Joshi. He says he has received requests from countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe regarding information about WiSE.
Both say awareness and outreach are priorities IEEE CASS chapters around the world are well placed to support.
“We want to make a difference in the lives of young women,” said Zele. “It’s all about giving attendees the skills to be independent and have the knowledge to make good decisions.”
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