Why are women in engineering initiatives necessary?
While women account for approximately 50% of the students enrolled in other professional schools such as law or medicine, female students in engineering programs are still in the minority. In 1998, women accounted for only about 23% of all undergraduate, engineering students in Ontario (PEO, 2001) – at some Ontario universities female enrolment is as low as 10%! At this time, low enrolment in the applied sciences is contrasted by overall female enrolment in university at 52% of the total. While the last few decades have brought increasing percentages of women into the field, recently, female enrolment figures seem to be leveling off. There is a misconception that lower enrolment figures are due to a lack of female high school students are studying the prerequisite courses for engineering.
