Where Are the Girls Now?

Abstract

To counteract falling female enrollments in university computer science programs, they recommend that schools: make courseware interesting to girls, make computers an ordinary classroom resource in primary and secondary schools, and make it easier for girls to choose IT electives. Universities should hold open days for schoolchildren, consciously aimed at girls as well as boys, to make it clear that CS is more than programming; have role models, have an anti-discrimination policy, exercise care to retain enrolled women, put girls in the same tutorial groups (critical mass), and have tutors be unusually supportive. At the University of Southhampton the problem was too few female applicants, but those who did apply registered at the same rate as the males.