Women in engineering celebrated

WINDHOEK, 22 AUG – Namibian female engineers on Wednesday celebrated women in engineering under the theme ‘Empowering women is a revolution’.
The celebration follows the International Women in Engineering Day observed on 23 June annually as an awareness campaign with the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) to raise the profiles of women in engineering.
The event here was organised by the Namibia Women in Engineering Association.
In a speech read on his behalf, Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) Vice Chancellor, Tjama Tjivikua said the enrolment of female students in engineering has remained consistent at 25 per cent over the years.
He added that in 2016, the female percentage of graduates stood at 35 per cent compared to 31 per cent in 2011.
“The consistent increase indicates a dynamic shift in the attitude towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics related studies and careers for Namibian women. At NUST the female academic engineering staff complement is currently pegged at 26 per cent,” said Tjivikua.
He noted that there are numerous demotivating factors such as family, societal, peer issues and unconscious biases that hinder and discourage the girl child and women from studying engineering, because it was not marketed properly or sufficiently in the past.
Tjivikua further noted that at present, there is a lack of understanding amongst learners on what engineering is all about, as many young girls in society are under the impression that engineering involves “wearing dirty overalls, a hard hat and having greasy hands”.
“Diversity is essential in the engineering field and is critical for enhancing performance,” he said.
At the same occasion, Minister of Higher Education, Training and Innovation, Dr Itah Kandjii-Murangi said through the industrialisation agenda, Namibia can achieve economic growth and sustainable development and engineers and technologists play a major role in realising this growth.
Kandjii-Murangi noted that government has developed comprehensive strategies to broaden the participation of women and girls to improve achievement and provide rigorous curricula in science, technology, engineering and mathematics related studies, therefore reducing dropout rates of women in such fields is important towards gender equality.
“Through the expansion of engineering workforce and the enhancing of quality of engineering training, Namibia will attain the aspirations contained in vision 2030,” she said. – NAMPA