Event review: Women in Engineering convention
- Amanda Dormehl M 28th
anagement Today attended the ITC 2nd
to 30th
Annual Women in Engineering Convention, held at Gold Reef City, November 2011. The speaker list
included international and local experts such as Dr Liane Smith, Dr Michele Kruger, Dr Aprille Ericson, Gugu Mthembu and Thandiwe Malindi. The conference covered a wide array of topics ranging from using mentorship to advance careers, to the specialisation and delivery of infrastructure projects in the Public Sector. Below we bring you more detail on two of the
presentations delivered during the Intelligence Transfer Centre conference.
Attracting, Developing and Retaining Women Engineers and Scientists by Dr Michele Kruger There is no question about the fact that South Africa needs to attract, develop and retain women engineers and scientist. But which practices and initiatives are in place to attract women into engineering?
The strongest positive influences and support I have noticed are from parents and spouses. The strongest negative influences include lack of support at work, perceived discrimination or impediments to equal opportunity and policies and practices specific to women such as on pregnancy. There is a great need for flexible working conditions, equality in salaries, policies relating to work-life balance, more company and managerial support, better defined graduate training programmes and job stability and continuity.
The Government plans to spend R215- billion on education and skills development by 2014 that is set to deliver 30,000 additional
84 Management Today | April 2012
Dr Michele Kruger (right) with Dr Liane Smith at the recent conference
engineers. The Dinaledi schools project is also geared to increase the number of school- leavers who are able to enter the science and engineering fields through their tertiary studies.
There are a number of institutions driving activities in this area. The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) ECSA’s, the Engenius initiative and Consulting Engineers South Africa are examples. Another is the South African Women in Engineering (SAWomEng) that is targeting female engineering students in their penultimate, final and postgraduate years. They also have a GirlEng programme that was launched in 2009 and offers mentoring and coaching to young girls.
But how do we develop young women? I think it starts with building some basic skills such as public speaking, report writing and liaising with clients. We also need to shape their attitudes so that they see obstacles as opportunities and that they feel incline to get
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