Ms Anna Porter:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting me to speak, particularly Senator Mary White, whom I met at this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

I am in transition year in Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock and I also live in Blackrock. I love science and I hope to study chemistry and biology for my leaving certificate. I participated in the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition three times, in the SciFest competition and in the Northern Ireland young scientist competition. I love doing project work and carrying out research. I noticed that in all these competitions the majority of judges were male. Last summer, I decided to look at the statistics and this was the beginning of my research.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These are important subjects and, with such a rapidly changing economy, we need an increasing number of people with a STEM qualification. Education in these subjects is essential to create a future generation in a highly qualified workforce capable of critical thinking and solving real world problems such as global warming, disappearing habitats and Third World hunger.

Recent figures from the CSO show that in Ireland less than 25% of the almost 180,000 people working in STEM careers are women. That is less than one quarter of the STEM workforce. A report published by the Forfás expert group on future skills needs in 2012 stated that Irish companies will have an estimated 44,500 job openings for people with high-level ICT skills in the coming six years. In order to prevent a shortfall and to ensure that Ireland can compete in the global market, we cannot ignore 50% of the talent pool.

The problem is not just in Ireland but a global phenomenon. Statistics in Europe and America show a similar gender bias. Why are women not fairly represented? Men and women are different but neither gender is less able to do STEM. Having both sexes being equally represented in the workforce would maximize creativity, innovation and experience. Many studies have been carried out to find a reason for the imbalance. The majority seem to focus on why women do not go into STEM careers or why, when they do enter STEM careers, they drop out. I decided to investigate why women choose to work in STEM and, as a result, come up with recommendations to encourage more women to follow in their footsteps.

I contacted a number of women who had worked in STEM careers for ten years or more. I interviewed three of these women. My aim was to do an online survey but before I designed the survey I needed to identify themes and ideas on which to base the questions. I also did a lot of reading of previous reports, news articles and books. I wanted to be as informed on the topic as I could be before I published my survey online. I compiled my survey and tested it. I then published a final version online.

To distribute my survey, I e-mailed women and organisations, including Women in Technology and Science, WITS, and Women into Science and Engineering, WISE. All were eager to help and posted about it in newsletters and websites. I was excited to follow the survey as it went out on social media, particularly Twitter. I closed the survey on 14 December 2014 with a sample size of 216 respondents and began to analyse the data using both OpenOffice Calc and Microsoft Office Excel.

I was delighted to see a fair cross section of women working in STEM careers represented in the survey. The responses came from both academia and industry, with about 60% from academia. The percentages for women working in the different fields of STEM varied, with 54% working in science and only 5% in mathematics. A genuine interest or passion for STEM seems to be the main reason a woman would choose to study a STEM subject in third level and continue to a career in STEM. Some 81% of respondents cited interest as the main influence. Teachers and parents appear to be the main human influences in a woman's choice of STEM, with teachers rated at 74% and parents at 65%. Guidance counsellors appear to be less influential than parents and teachers and rated quite low, sometimes having a negative influence.

A large majority of respondents believed role models were important in the choice to do STEM in college and as a career. Peer pressure, which affects me, was quoted by at least a third of the respondents as a major factor.

A number of negative factors cited included difficulties in managing the family-work balance, the lack of job security, sexism-positive bias toward the male employee, the general culture and a lack of clarity about job prospects having studied STEM subjects. The workload and administration duties in a STEM job were cited as the least favourite aspects.

My study made the following recommendations: STEM subjects needed to be presented in as interesting a way as possible at school level; the subjects needed to be taught in a way that would appeal to students in general and, in particular, stimulate girls’ interest in, love of and curiosity in the subject to counteract gender stereotyping; it was essential teachers received additional CPD training to support them in providing a classroom environment which fostered gender equality - positive reinforcement by the teacher is important to encourage a girl’s long-term interest in STEM; parents needed to be more informed to guide their daughters in choosing STEM subjects; guidance counsellors needed better support in respect of information on the wide variety of STEM careers available; role models should be advocated and more females in the STEM field might help - another point that was brought up, however, was that role models did not necessarily have to be female to encourage a girl into taking STEM subjects; more flexibility regarding workload and family in terms of job sharing, the provision of crèche facilities and retraining after parental leave, as STEM careers are fast paced - therefore, it is important that parents be comfortable in taking parental leave before resuming their jobs; this may be where we are losing much of the STEM workforce; and encouraging Government, industry and schools and colleges to work together more to maximise the impact of their programmes on students, teachers, parents, guidance counsellors and people in general to make sure information was getting out.

These are my recommendations. I hope to conduct a more in-depth analysis of my data and enter my project in the SciFest competition in May. I enjoyed working on my project very much and thank the committee for listening to my presentation.