弥合肯尼亚数字技术课程和职业中性别差距的政策框架（英）

BRIDGING THE GENDER DIVIDE IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY COURSES AND CAREERS IN KENYA AA POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR Bridging the Gender Divide in Digital Technology Courses and Careers in KenyaE C H I D N A G LO B A L S C H O L A R S P R O G R A MANTHONY LUVANDABRIDGING THE GENDER DIVIDE IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY COURSES AND CAREERS IN KENYA 1Executive SummaryKenya’s digital technology advancements—chief among them the mobile money transfer applica-tion referred to as Mpesa—has led to the country’s status as an emerging digital economy. Howev-er, the long strides in the move toward a fully-fledged digital economy are not reflected in the digital technology workforce with regard to gender balance. While digital technology careers are highly touted as the jobs of the future, women occupy less than 30 percent of digital technology positions in Kenya. The root cause of the problem can be traced to disadvantages that girls and young women accumulate throughout their years in education. This study takes a qualitative approach in trying to identify the root causes for the exclusion of girls and young women from digital technology courses at all levels of education—namely lower primary, upper primary, junior high school, senior high school, and the tertiary level in both rural and urban communities. The study identifies various cumulative factors that contribute to fewer women taking up digital technology courses, such as: inadequate infrastructure; insufficient staffing and training of digital technology personnel at learning institutions; the negative impact of gendered so-cial norms; poor advocacy of digital technology careers and the absence of vocational counseling; and the lack of women role models. To increase the number of women in digital technology careers, we must improve institutional digital technology infrastructure at all levels of education, enhance the training of digital technology personnel within all levels of education, build girls’ interest in digital technology-related courses from the earliest years, increase digital technology advocacy and awareness among girls, and enhance vocational counseling on digital technology careersI. BRIDGING THE GENDER DIVIDE IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY COURSES AND CAREERS IN KENYA 2IntroductionWe live in a fast-paced digital world, full of adaptability, dynamism, and rapid evolution. Take for example that around 10–15 years ago, multi-million-dollar information communication technology (ICT) companies like Lyft, Pinterest, Slack, and Uber had not even been launched. Yet certain aspects within the digital technology industry have not kept pace with the same rapid evolutionary processes as the rest of the sector—gender equity chief among them. As of July 2022, technology careers made up 25 percent of the world’s “top jobs,” with 3 of the 5 high-est-paying jobs being in digital technology (Indeed, 2022). These types of jobs in addition to other science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-related jobs will continue to