Mind the Gap! is a consortium of 5 partners (2 VET organisations & 3 gender and STEM organisations) from the UK, NL and ES all committed to promoting & teaching Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths subjects (STEM) in VET. A disturbing ongoing skills gap in the EU STEM sector, continued shortfall of women & increasing STEM drop-out rates of girls in STEM requires GAP to address these issues with practical tools and results. 1,300m people with technical skills will be required by 2020. Current graduate levels (both male & female students) in STEM subjects are not sufficient to fill these vacancies. Policy makers within the EU have recently called for more to be done to attract students to this area. However, there is a secondary problem in that women are grossly under-represented in STEM: A 2012 WISE report stated that "While a few (mainly ex-Soviet) countries have around 20% women in STEM, Western European countries such as France and Spain (17% each), Denmark (16%), Germany (15%), Finland (15%), and UK (9%) all bring the European average down to 17%". With women currently making up almost half the labour market (46% of the workforce in the UK), the GAP partners therefore recognise that by encouraging more girls into STEM subjects after compulsory education we can make a contribution to: 1/ Filling the STEM skills shortage by inspiring more girls to stay in school and gain STEM qualifications 2/ Combating high levels of early VET drop-out rates and youth unemployment by raising aspirations amongst young women 3/ Improving gender diversity in STEM by raising awareness of the current gap Mind the GAP! will work directly with: 1/ VET Teachers working in STEM subjects 2/ Girls, (16-18yrs) in STEM subjects (& girls who dropped out or completed study but not entered STEM jobs) and indirectly with: 1/ Younger girls in secondary schools 2/ VET teachers generally 3/ Key decision makers and stakeholders 4/ Organisations working in the field of gender diversity and STEM Based on a needs analysis of VET teachers and girls in STEM, the partnership will complete activities with the overall aim of: 1/ Directly helping a number of VET teachers in each partner country to recruit and retain more girls onto their STEM courses 2/ Supporting and inspiring a number of girls to continue their STEM education and careers by helping them develop the soft skills they will need to work in a male-dominated environment. Longer term we will also work to raise awareness amongst a wider target group of the importance of promoting STEM to young women and girls in schools and colleges across Europe. GAP will achieve this via concrete results: - Mind the GAP! Gender Training Programme A new training programme will be adapted by the partnership (from VHTO materials in NL) and will be designed to support VET teachers to recruit and retain female students on their courses; providing teaching tools and inclusive methodologies for increasing teachers' gender-awareness in STEM in their teaching approaches. - Career Circles: Girls in STEM Based on a peer mentoring and action learning methodology developed by Inova (UK), GAP will develop Career Circles to support girls studying or recently finishing STEM subjects to help them develop the soft skills they need to develop their career plans, assess their goals and build the self-confidence they will need to work in a male-dominated field. - Career Circles: VET Teachers Circles will also be developed for VET Teachers to explore with peers, issues faced by women in STEM, understand how they can better support young students, reflect on their CPD and share teaching methods and tools. - GAP Online Learning Hub A Learning Hub will make the materials produced by GAP available freely to a wider audience of girls, VET teachers, policy makers and the community. It will also bring together a range of other OER resources in a search-able catalogue which will help girls and teachers find useful training materials. - Policy Makers Guide: Improving Gender Inclusivity in Teaching of STEM Subjects at VET Level Aimed at highlighting issues of gender diversity in STEM to key EU policy makers in VET, produced in order to ensure VET teaching in STEM is inclusive and address VET STEM subject drop-out rates (esp.girls) and measures to counter these in STEM via GAP tools. - Mind the Gap! Media Campaign A media campaign including videos, posters and brochures will be produced and distributed online via social media (videos) and to VET teachers for display in classrooms (print materials) to ensure that more young girls (at all school levels and even future generations) will hear the Mind the Gap! message and be inspired to continue studies in STEM. All GAP materials and resources will be freely available online and be maintained after the project to ensure that we can continue inspiring and supporting both girls and VET teachers and, perhaps one day, see a more gender diverse workforce in STEM professions.
Mind the GAP! was a successful two-year EU project created to address the disturbing – and ongoing – shortfall of women training and working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). It was run as an effective consortium of five partners from the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Spain. All partners had expertise and experience in vocational STEM training or gender diversity issues. When the project began, it was estimated that 1,300 million people with technical skills would be needed for jobs in the STEM sector by 2020. At the same time, figures showed that there were not enough STEM graduates – male and female - to fill these vacancies. Policy makers within the EU had recently called for more to be done to attract students to this area. To further compound this, statistics showed that women were grossly underrepresented in STEM careers and training. For example, a report by the WISE Campaign in 2012 showed that, "While a few (mainly ex-Soviet) countries have around 20% women in STEM, Western European countries such as France and Spain (17% each), Denmark (16%), Germany (15%), Finland (15%), and UK (9%) all bring the European average down to 17%". Women made up almost half the labour market (46% of the workforce in the UK), so we recognised that encouraging and retaining more girls in STEM subjects after compulsory education was crucial for tackling the problem. Mind the GAP! was created in this context and aspired to help: - Fill the STEM skills shortage by inspiring more girls to stay in training and vocational education in order to gain STEM qualifications. - Combat high levels of early drop-out rates and youth unemployment by raising aspirations amongst young women. - Improve gender diversity in STEM by raising awareness of the current skills gap. We worked directly with: - STEM teachers at vocational colleges and schools - Female students, aged 16–18, and studying STEM and indirectly with: - Younger girls in secondary schools - Teachers and key staff in other subjects - Key decision makers and stakeholders - Organisations working in gender diversity and STEM The project kicked off by running focus groups with both teachers and female students in order to create a realistic and useful needs analysis. Based on this, we ran a series of effective activities that aimed to: - support and inspire girls to continue their education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) - help STEM teachers in vocational training colleges to recruit and retain more girls. The project had the longer term aspiration of raising awareness among a wider target group about the importance of promoting STEM to young women and girls in schools and colleges across Europe. Mind the GAP! achieved some great concrete results through this series of practical activities and tools: - Mind the GAP! Gender Training Programme: Based on original materials from VHTO (NL), this was designed to support teachers to recruit and retain female students on their courses. It also provided teaching tools and inclusive methodologies for increasing teachers' gender-awareness in STEM. - Career Circles: Female STEM students: Based on a peer mentoring and action learning methodology developed by Inova (UK), we created and ran successful Career Circles to support girls studying or recently finishing STEM subjects. This helped them develop the soft skills they needed to further their career plans, assess their goals and build the self-confidence they would need to work in a male-dominated environment. - Career Circles: STEM teachers: Career Circles were also developed for teachers to explore, alongside their peers, some of the issues faced by women in STEM. This helped them to understand how they could better support students, reflect on their own professional development, and share teaching methods and tools. - Mind the GAP! Online Learning Hub: A Learning Hub with materials and resources produced by the project is now available freely to a wider audience of girls, teachers, policy makers and the community. It brings together other Open Educational Resources in a searchable catalogue to help girls and teachers find useful training materials. - Guide for Policy Makers in Science and Technology Education: All five partners contributed to writing a policy makers guide, based on the experience of the project. It highlighted issues of gender diversity in STEM and was disseminated to key policy makers in UK, NL and ES. - Mind the GAP! Media Campaign: A successful media and dissemination campaign ran throughout the project. It ranged from printed posters for classroom walls, through to postings on Facebook and Twitter and a range of “Spread the Word” groups. All Mind the GAP! materials and resources are freely available online and maintained so that we can continue inspiring and supporting girls and teachers and - perhaps one day - see a more gender diverse workforce in STEM professions.