Preparing Our Girls To Partake In The Future

In today's world, technology is essential to education, especially in Africa.

It is important to us that our girls are ready to face the world after they have completed their education at PGHS. Therefore, we took great pride in being the only school in Rotifunk with laptops for all of our girls, furthering their education and opening countless future doors. Now, we are proud to start computer lessons for our girls in the Boarding Home.

"According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) report on Gender Gap in Science, globally, only 28.4 percent of people engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers are women. In sub-Saharan Africa, that figure is around 30.0 percent on average. Additionally, the proportion of women using the Internet globally is 48 percent, compared to 58 percent of men. Between 2013 and 2019, the gender gap hovered around zero in the Americas and has been shrinking in the CIS countries and Europe. However, in the Arab States, Asia, and the Pacific, and Africa, the gender gap has been growing. Coding and other ICT skills are essential in the future labor market. Hence, if African girls and women are to be part of the fast-growing sectors in the future job market, they must be able to develop the ICT skills needed."

Already impacting our lives in a big way, information and communication technology (ICT) is going to continue its growth creating around two million jobs in the mathematical, computer, engineering, and architecture fields. In addition, an estimate of 90% of future jobs will require some form of ICT skills.

Girls, in particular, already face many barriers to their education, and unfortunately, the lack of access to technology is an additional log on the metaphorical fire. Technology is not widely available in Sierra Leonean schools, due to lack of provision, and is even more scarce in the rural areas, where lack of electricity and enough power to sustain devices for a long period of time is prevalent. Here, poverty-families who already cannot afford food will not prioritize technology. And even in cases where technology is available, young girls are not being given access.

So, giving our girls the necessary soft skills required to partake in the technological boom in future job markets, will not only equip them with better possibilities when the time comes for them to enter into said markets but will aid in closing the technological gender gap, and hopefully enable more schools to recognize the importance of developing ICT skills in girls.