Enhancing Gender Balance in Engineering Education and Practice

Despite the rapid development brought about by the exponential expansion of engineering in technological scope and societal impact that are quite noticeable, the level of representation of women in this unique profession is still very low. Research has shown that few women study engineering at the tertiary institution or university-level with less than 25% of total enrollment, pursuing an engineering career after graduation. Thus, the underutilised pool of talent that women represent may actually limit access to a larger pool of future engineers, entrepreneurs, innovators, etc., and hence a limiting access to a more diverse talent pool. This situation has resulted in impaired creativity and innovation, which is the essence of engineering. This paper therefore reviews the issue of gender balance in engineering education and practice, with the main objective of highlighting the likely causes of the disparity and how it can be alleviated, in order to facilitate and enhance gender balance in engineering education, practice and the profession at large. Closing the gender gap in engineering enrollment and practice will require a lot of re-appraisal of existing strategies on the part of stakeholders. Delimiting policies, primordial cultures, curricula, etc., may have to be changed and career paths made more welcoming in order to enhance women enrollment and participation in engineering.