equal opportunities in engineering education

by B. S. Coles

This paper considers the present initiatives aimed at encouraging a better rqresentation ofwomen in undergraduate engineering counes, It concentrates on experience in Australia

and makes comparisons with overseas activities. Problems and dijiculties in achievinggender balance are discussed with the conclusion that there is still a long way to go.

Introduction

n the ten years h m 1980 to 1989 the number of female students studymg engineering in Australia rose from 3.3% to 8.9% according to a Department I of Employment, Education and Training report’.

Engineering still has the lowest female participation rate of any broad area of study in A u s d a . A second Department of Employment, Education and Training report set a target of 15% enrolment of women in engineering by 1993’. The Institution of Engineers Austraha (IE Aust) has adopted a strategy to increase the female participation rate to 20% by 1997. This is based on the recommendations of the 1988 Wdliams repor?.

The eastern European countries have generally led the way in numbers of women graduating in engineering: in the Soviet Union a figure of 34% was quoted as early as 1967. According to a UNESCO report4 the female enrolments in engineering in the early 1980s were: Yugoslavia and Turkey 21%, Portugal and Greece 18%, Finland 15%.

In the USA the number of women undergraduates in engineering increased from 3% in 1972 to 15% in 1983 but has since levelled 0E5.

In the UK since 1984, which was designated ‘Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) Year’ by the Engineering Council and the Equal Oppor- tunities Commission, the female participation rate in engineering has increased from 7% in 1980 to 13% in 1990. During that period considerable effort was put into the WISE programmes by the Engineering Council. This included the provision of travelling techological laboratories (WISE buses) whch tour the secondary schools around the countryb. Fig. 1 indcates that Australia appears to be 10 years behind the US and

USA

t I

targets 1 I

year

Female participation in undergraduate Fig. 1 engineering courses

5 years behind the UK in female participation rates.

Since 1982, in Australia the Women’s Bureau has made available high-quaky publicity materials and a video aimed at secondary school students entitled ‘Women in professional engineering’. Female pamci- pation rates are not consistent across engineering disciplines and in the past it has been noted that chemical engineering has tended to attract higher female participation than other mscipline areas (University of Adelaide 52%, University of Sydney 45%, University of Melbourne 39% first year entry in 1991). This has been attributed to the fact that girls in secondary school prefer chemistry to physics and see chemical

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engineering as a natural development of that inter- est. The introduction of combined degrees in Australia such as arts/ engineering, businesden- gineering, law/engineering and science/engineering has proved attractive to female students and much higher participation rates

.eQw!e JwaiYe Creative, exciting Dull, boring

Team involvement

excellence awards designed to promote women in engineering under five different categories (public and private sector, education sector, community education and personal initiative). One of the awards was for the prepar-

Fig. 2 The image of engineering ation of a video ‘Earthlings ~~~

have been reported for these courses. More recently the introduction of undergraduate

courses in environmental engineering has been seen as overcoming the ‘image problem’ of engineering being a career dealing with things rather than people. This unfortunately is a popular misconception among a large number of secondary school students of either sex (Fig. 2). The rush into environmental engineering is not welcome by many who consider that both sexes have much to contribute to all discipline areas by virtue of their creativity and problem-solving abhties. There is a further danger that with the proliferation of environmental courses (10 have started or are about to be introduced in Australia) the numbers entering tradxional streams wiU be further depleted. In the long run this would perpetuate the reductionist model of engineering in which environmental and social aspects of engineering are neatly separated from technical (real) engineering and are comfortably set apart as the ‘soft’ side of engineering and left to a group which would eventually comprise around 50% women’.

IE Aust initiatives

The first positive initiative from the IE Aust was the establishment of the Women Engineers Group in Sydney in 1981 and in Victoria in 1983. In South Austraha an autonomous group supported by industry and the educational institutions was established in 1984.

Because of the distances involved, most activities in Austraha tend to be state-based, and very few students are attracted to study at interstate universities unless they happen to live near the

can do anything’ aimed at primary school girls and community stereotyping. This video has now been internationally recognised, winning a silver medal in the career guidance category at the New York Film Festival’.

Development of women-in-engineering programmes

It is nearly 20 years since the Victoria University of Technology initiated a women-in-engineering programme based on the US model. This programme included specific course literature aimed at female students, talks to secondary schools and orientation seminars“’. Unfortunately the original literature was considered sexist even in the 1970s (Fig. 3).

The University of Technology, Sydney held its first seminar for hgh-school girls in 1981 and has operated a fully funded Women in Engineering Program since 1986”. In 1982 the University of Ballarat produced course literature and a slide-tape presentation emphasising opportunities for women in engineering plus special &splays on Open Day. Monash University produced a ‘Women in engineering’ brochure in 1984 and was recognised as being one of the most vigorous in its efforts to attract more women into engineeringI2. Ths activity has been maintained and has resulted in an increase from 9% female enrolments in 1985 to 18% in 1990, an achievement whch was recognised by an IE Aust ‘Engineering 2000’ award.

It has been suggested that once a certain proportion or number of female students is present and evident then recruitment and retention becomes seK-sustaining

and seK-perpetuatingI3. This critical mass approach would suggest concentrating efforts on

border. The IE Aust has a state a limited number of schools or Division structure and each Once a Certain PrOpOrtiOn disciplines until the secure state has its own government with some responsibility for

proportion is reached. How- ever. this does not remove the Or number Of female

~ ~ ~~~~

education. Hence most of the initiatives in attracting women students is present and responsibility of all institutions

to create supportive environ- .I

into engineering tend to be state-based. By 1986 females made UP 4.3% of the IE Aust

evident then recruitment and retention becomes

ments, but recognises that some institutions are more likely than others to initiate effectivelv ,

student membership compared resourced and planned action”. The critical mass approach was with 0.8% of professional self-sustaining

members*. The IE Aust recently intrc-

duced its Engineering 2000

endorsed by the- ~ Australian government in 1986 when funding for women in


200

engineering programmes was provided to Queensland University of Technology (QUT), University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) under the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission’s equity programme. This funding was used to appoint a Women in Engineering CO-ordnator at each campus to develop support structures and bridging courses together with the provision of speakers for secondary schools.

QUT concentrated resources on a bridging programme aimed at attracting mature students looking for a new career and having the capacity to undertake engineering studies but lacking the necessary mathematics/science background to gain entry. Over the three year period from 1985 to 1988 the female participation rate increased from 2% to 8% of new enrolments in engineering“.

The strategy at UTS was to increase the contacts with high-school girls, careers advisers and parents. This was done by running symposia for secondary schools on engineering and rostering female engineers to address potential engineering students.

The Women in Engineering Project at RMIT concentrated on providing services for teachers, students and parents. These services included careers

WANTED

SECONDARY STUDENTS Willing to take up the challenge of becoming

PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS Fig. 3 Careers literature used in Australia in 1975

seminars and workshops (some for girls in remote areas), a school speakers programme, preparation of promotional material and the setting up of a work experience register. Since the inception of the project there has been a steady increase in the number of women enrolling in engineering courses. RMIT claims to have the largest number of female engineering students in Australia and women make up 23% of the 1992 first year intake (up from less than 6% in 1982). Critical mass has been assumed to lie between 15% and 20% according to US research’’.

The University of Melbourne has run an industry sponsored Women in Engineering project since 1988 and the female participation rate has increased from 6% in 1985 to 18% in 1990. The project objectives are to increase young women’s understanding of the nature and range of engineering careers and courses and to raise the awareness of careers/science teachers of the nature of engineering. In August 1990 over 170 Year- 10 girls attended the Engineering for Girls Seminar, with 23 schools represented.

Since 1990 Women in Engineering activities have increased but nearly all of these projects are concentrated in the major metropolitan centres with very little attention (or fundmg) being paid to rural secondary school students.

Some of the fhded metropolitan centres realising ths fact have made recent attempts to reach out into the rural areas. The University of Adelaide in its trial distribution of engineering information included t h e country secondary schools in its total sample of 13 schoolsI6. Curtin University has run residential camps for female students from rural areas over the past two years. These are aimed at Year 10 and cover engineering and science over a four day period”. RMIT introduced an outreach programme on ‘Engineering careers for women’ in 1991 as a series of one-day workshops at five country centres across Victoria”.

Barriers and hurdles

The first hurdle is the attitudmal c h t e , as t h s is the most deeply entrenched and the hardest to fight, especially for country-based regional universities. These negative attitudes towards engineering may be considered to be strongest in parents, teachers, school counsellors, career teachers and guidance o5cers. The majority of these were probably educated in the humanitiedarts, but had very little knowledge or background in technology. Much ofthe early efforts of


201

Fia. 4 'I thouaht of becomina an enaineer but I didn't want to get my hands dirty!'

ment, organisational behaviour, health and safety, environmental principles, the engineer in society and technical com- munications). This is in addtion to the 13% devoted to engineering design and project work. As a small regional university it is possible to teach these core units as part of the integrated degree right up to 4th year level".

The problem of sex bias in careers guidance has been addressed by the fully funded Women in Engineering projects. Parker and Agnew observed that there was a dearth of information about engineering in South Australian secondary schools, compoun- ded by a lack of informed teachers and a serious shortage of female mathematics/science

(C&tesy of EEgineers Austraiia) - the Women in Engineering projects were aimed at educating the educators.

The image of engineering is a continuing problem and ths was referred to in the Introduction and Fig. 2. The negative aspects of this image have been addressed in recent years by the IE Aust and educational institutions in their careers literature. However it will still take time to reverse some of the popular misconceptions of engineering (Fig. 4):

requires strength rather than brain power 0 requires manual dexterity rather than creativity 0 is basically dirty rather than clean

is concerned with things not people requires only technical skills, not communication or

damages the environment rather than protects it dull and uninteresting rather than exciting and

harsh working conditions rather than pleasant work

social skills

stimulating

environment

The image that has to be conveyed to all secondary school students is that engineering is a career for anyone interected in applying mathematics, science and technology to the creative solution of problems. It encompasses the technicd. social, economic, political and environmental aspects of the engineering process. The IE A u t has recently included a requirement for 10%) of the undergraduate engineering programme to be devoted to managemmt topics. At the University of Ballarat since 1982, approximately 13% of the course has covered the nontechnical aspects of engineering (i.e. finance, law, econoniics, human resource nianage-

teachers"'. The majority of the careers counsellors, female and

male, have not studied any niathematics or science at tertiary level.

Peer group and staff pressures can often have a negative effect on the selfesteem offemale engineering students. A recent survey at the University of Ballarat indicated that about 40% of the female students considered male student attitudes to be one of the greatest difficulties they had to face, although only 4% considered staff hostility to be a major difficulty. However, when asked what further support should be given to female students, 36% of those who responded (17% ofthe total) commented on staff attitudes. 'Treat females as equals; they do have a right to become engineers' was a typical summary of their responses.

There has been a perception that inadequate mathematics could be one of the problenls keeping female students out of engineering. This was addressed by the Victorian government during the late 1980s with an extensive TV advertising campaign 'Maths multiplies your choices' aimed principally at secondary school girls and their parents. The result has been increased numbers of female students continuing their mathematics studies up to Year-12 level. In Queensland the bridging progranmie at QUT combines preparatory mathematics and physics with three units from the BEng first year to be run as a single semester full-time prograninie in the second half of the year".

University of Ballarat

The University of Ballarat is a small regional university (4300 students) located 120 kni north-west of Melbourne and from 1990 to 1993 was affiliated with

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the University of Melbourne as Ballarat University College.

Engineering courses have been running in Ballarat since 1870, when they were the responsibility of the Ballarat School of Mines. At present Ballarat offers the only fully accredited integrated engineering degree course in Western Victoria with streams in civil, electrical/electronic, mechanical and mining engineering.

Students are drawn from throughout the state of Victoria (89%) as well as some from interstate and overseas (1 1%). The current undergraduate enrolment of 346 now includes 35 females. In order to reach this level of 10% it has been a long, hard struggle, with no specific funding over the past 10 years: in 1982 there were no females enrolled on the course (Fig. 5).

Due to the lack of fundmg it was necessary to work closely with other agencies in the Ballarat region. During 1986 and 1987 a Careers Option Project (COP) was funded at the Ballarat Community Education Centre (BCEC) and employed two full- time project ofkers with the aim of broadening girls’ career aspirations and expectations. Commonwealth fundmg was provided to BCEC for equal opportunity projects aimed at promoting the elimination of sexism in schools. The first co-operative project was the publication of ‘Girls can do it’”, which included an engineering graduate and an engineering student among 30 case study interviews with women in nontraditional occupations.

In 1990 a Tertiary Awareness Project (TAP) was established in Ballarat with partial funding from the Commonwealth equity programme. Although this project was not specifically aimed at equity the project officers have tended to give it high priority. Co- operation between TA? the School of Engineering and the Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (CSMATE) resulted in a one day workshop for Year-10 girls in 1991. The programme consisted of careers talks, laboratory demon- strations and hands-on workshop activities. It was broadly based on an earlier workshop run at the Uni- versity of Melbourne. Female engineering students acted as hosts during the day and good coverage was obtained on the local TV news bulletin. In 1992 the workshop concentrated on apprenticeships and TAFE (Technical and Further Education) courses. In 1993 the workshop was broad-

ened to include geology, metallurgy, mathe- nlatics/computing and food technology and became a Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) day. The sponsorship was the same as in 1991 but the TAP has not been funded since the end of 1993.

Student feedback

The 35 female students are from 30 different schools with the most from any one school being 3. They are now spread evenly over the four years of the course, with from 8 to 10 in each year. The first year is common but in the later years of the course they split into the following streams:

0 civil, 11 electrical, 1

0 mechanical, 3 0 mining, 8

10% attended single-sex schools and 90% attended co-educational schools. 60% attended public schools and 10% attended private schools.

Engineering was the first choice of 87% of those surveyed, which was encouraging and would help to explain why female students pedorni better on average and have a higher retention rate. The major influencks in choosing engineering (top two choices included) were:

personal decision 26% parents/friends 23%

0 mathshcience teacher 16% careers adviser 1%

0 RMIT seminars 10%

year

Fig. 5 Female students enrolled on the Bachelor of Engineering course at the University of Ballarat

The majority (73%) stated that the course had lived up to expectations and most of the first year students (23%) felt it was too early to tell. Again, encouragingly, 93% said that they would choose engineering if they were starting out again. Most of the students (90%) had parents / fdy who were supportive of their decision to study engineering. They were fairly evenly divided on whether su5cient emphasis was given to attracting female students into engineering with 60% responding ‘yes’, and 40% ‘no’. Those who answered in the negative were then asked what more could be done. The responses were as follows:

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203

0 visits to schools 40% 0 workshops for schools 24% 0 tertiary awareness programmes 20% 0 TV advertising 16%.

The majority ofstudents beyond the first year indicated their wdhngness to help with careers visits to schools (67%). Perhaps surprising, but agam encouraging, was the response to the question ‘Are the s t a f f generally supportive of female students?’ 77% responded ‘yes’, 20% ‘too early to tell’. The factors making the transition from secondary to tertiary education most &cult did not appear to be gender specific:

0 teaching methods 40% 0 leaving home 21%

social activities 17%.

However, when asked ‘What is the greatest acuity you have had to face as a female student?’ (top two choices included) the following responses were given:

0 lack of technical background 37% male student attitudes 27%

0 understanding terminology 20%.

The female students were reasonably optimistic on employment prospects and 93% considered that an engineering career would suit their planned life style, although at that time only 37% had any engineering vacation experience. They were also optimistic that Australia could reach its target of 20% female enrolments in engineering by 1997 (62%).

The response to whether the University should give more support to its female students was evenly divided (‘yes’ 54%, ‘no’ 46%) and of those af3irmative responses 43% referred to stafFattitudes and the desire for females to be treated as the equals of male students, and 21% referred to the use of role models (lecturers/guest speakers) and social events.

Conclusions

Engineering education in Australia has been changing over the past decade and some may now consider it more ‘female f?iendly’. These changes have been the introduction of combined engineering degrees with other options, the proliferation of degrees in environ- m e n d engineering and, perhaps more importantly, the IE Aust requirement that all engineering courses should have at least 10% of broad-based management stumes (including social, political, economic, environmental and ethical aspects of engineering practice).

Although the numbers are less signtficant in national terms there is still a very long way to go in providmg equal opportunities in engineering education for rural- based students.

The image in engineering terminology of M3B2

must be reversed i.e. ‘Middle aged, Middle class, Male, Bald and Boring’.

References

1 Department of Employment Education and Training: ‘Engineering students, Higher Education series’. Report No. 6 AGPS (Australian Government Publishing Service), Canberra, 1990

2 Department of Employment, Education and Training: ‘A fair chance for all’. AGPS, Canberra, 1990

3 WILLIAMS, B.: ‘Review of the discipline of engineering’. AGPS, Canberra, 1988

4 COMINA, C.: ‘Female students in European engineering schools and universities’. Division of Tech. Research & Higher Ed., UNESCO, 1983

5 DANIELS, J. Z.: ‘Women in Engineering: a program administrator’s perspective’, Eng. Ed., May 1988

6 SHILLITOE, G.: ‘Women Into Science and Engineering (WISE) vehicle program’. World Conference on Engineer- ing Education, Portsmouth, UK, 1992

7 GARDEN, K. L.: ‘Women in engineering education: thinking it through’. AEESEAP (Association for Engineering Education in SE Asia and the Pacific) Conference, Christchurch NZ, 1991

8 LLOYD, B. E., and RICE, M. R.: ‘Labour market roles of professional engineers’. IE Aust, Canberra, 1986

9 ROGERS, M.: ‘Earthlings can do anythmg’. Video, Programme Learning Pty. Ltd., Sydney, 1991

10 LENNIE, K. S.: ‘Women in engineering’, The Chartered Engineer, June 1975

11 BOMAN, M., TAYLOR, E., and McGREGOR, H.: ‘Continuing comnutment to women in engineering’. AaeE (Australian Association for Engineering Education) Conference, Brisbane, 1992

12 BYRNE, E. M.: ‘Women and engineering: a comparative overview of new initiatives’. AGPS Canberra, 1985

13 LANTZ, A.: ‘Women engineers: a critical mass social support and satisfaction’, En8 Ed., April 1982

14 MATHIESON, W, and CORDEROY, H. J. B.: ‘Partici- pation of women in engineering’. World Conference on Engineering Education, Sydney, 1989

15 CONNOLLY, T., and PORTER, A. L.: ‘The recruitment and retention of women as undergraduate engineers.’ Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 1978

16 PARKER, S. J.: ‘Engineering for all- the development of an information package for schools’. AaeE Conference, Adelaide, 1991

17 SOMERVILLE BROWN, C., and HORSLEY, U. R.: ‘Women Into Engineering and Technology Project: Engineering and technology camps for girls.’ AaeE Conference, Brisbane, 1992

18 NGWEN, T. H.: ‘Promoting engineering to girls in high school’. AaeE Conference, Brisbane, 1992

19 COLES, B. S.: ‘Social aspects in engineering education’. IE Aust Engineering Education Conference, Adelaide, 1982

20 PARKER, S. J., and AGNEW, J. B.: ‘Opportunities for women in engineering: gemng the message across’. AaeE Conference, Melbourne, 1990

21 CALLAGHAN, L.: ‘Girls can do it’. Ballarat Community Education Centre, 1986

0 IEE: 1994

The author is Head of Civil Engineering, Division of Engineering and Science, University of Ballarat, Gear Avenue, Mount Helen, Victoria 3353, Australia.


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