International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of the internationally agreed sustainable development goals. Although the global community has made a lot of effort to inspire and engage women and girls in science, there is yet much to do until equal opportunities and possibilities for women and girls to fully participate in science. Being a school which has many talented and engaged students, many of whom are passionate about both science and empowerment of women and girls, there are several ideas and initiatives at TISB. We reached out to a few student initiatives to hear their opinion on the cause.  

This day is very important as women are so often overlooked in science – Ashna, Grade 11, Girl Up club 

The TISB Girl Up Club has been working towards gender equality and one of the main areas include inclusion of women in science, which starts with inclusion of girls in education. “One of the main projects we are working towards this year 'Future Pathways', which aims to address this by providing college and career counselling to underprivileged students”, says Ashna, Grade 11 student who is part of the Girl Up leadership. “This will help ensure they are fully aware of their options before moving forward and we believe it will encourage more girls to pursue traditionally male-dominated fields as well.” 

The Girl Up group actively recognises and celebrates lost and overlooked women in science, and looks to include more women in the field. Ashna explains why Girl Up group at TISB has started the ‘Future Pathways’ initiative: “As a woman who wants to pursue STEM herself, I think this is disastrous because many families force young women, despite their education in a STEM field, to not work as seen in the figures of 43% of Indian STEM graduates being women but only 14% STEM jobs are occupied by women.” By doing so, Girl Up at TISB wants to encourage underprivileged students to pursue higher studies and more skilled jobs. 

Recently the TISB Generation Led by Biology (GLBB) club introduced a series of science talks, called ‘BioSpeak’, to inspire young people to pursue their passion for science. “In science education for a better society and world, it is incredibly important to have a diverse workforce with a range of perspectives, ideas and skills”, says Khwaish, one of the leaders of the club. She highlights how science advancements pave the way for an advancing world; and how gender equality in this is important for an inclusive and creative future. “We need to strive to change the status quo by empowering girls and women with STEM education as a tool to defy stereotypes and break glass ceilings”, says Khwaish, whose club aims to help empowering more females through the BioSpeak series. Aiming to directly impact young girls, by introducing possible careers and opportunities in biology the team desires to empower a future generation of individuals in science.