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With National Coding Week just passed, and Ada Lovelace Day coming up, this is a chance to raise awareness of inequalities in computer science careers, and showcase what the Governments Equality Hub is doing to address gender imbalance in STEM.

We chatted to seven students from Saffron Walden High School, which is one of the first computing hubs picked by the Government-funded National Centre for Computing Education to run computing courses for teachers in the area. We discussed the girls experience learning coding and their aspirations for the future.

The girls, from Year 9 to Year 12, are eager computing students and aspire to go into careers ranging from fashion, medicine, law, and underwater engineering.

Anna, Elspeth, Grace, Ella, Mayurii, Rachel and Emma had lots of questions to ask us and were excited to know about the Equality Hubs work.

Their teacher, Katie Vanderpere-Brown, says she works hard to amplify the female role models in computer science: for example, Margaret Hamilton and her work with the Apollo Mission and Katherine Johnson, the human computer.

Our conversation with students:

In Year 7, Im in Year 9 now. I really enjoyed it and Ive just picked it as an option for GCSE.

Everyone said it was going to be really difficult but Im up for a challenge. My family were quite proud because they know that I enjoy it.

Their teacher, Katie, said: Weve had some good success here getting girls to recognise the importance of, and pick, computer science at GCSE, but the problem is few consider it for their next step and dont take it for their A-Levels. They can understand the value of learning to code, but few see it as a viable career. Were trying to get across that computer science can be a part of many creative jobs, not just a programming career.

Lots of students who take it have family members, older siblings, doing computer science. We need to find a way to reach those students who dont have role models in coding in their home.

Katie also explored some of the barriers which are preventing girls from moving into computer science.

Theres a shortage of specialised computer science teachers, she explains. Where other teachers are covering computer science lessons, it shows students, particularly those who are shrewd, that this subject is not valued as much, or it isnt someones full-time profession.

See original here:

Programming for fairness: meet students and their computer science teacher | BCS - BCS