Panel Discussion on How to Encourage Female Students to Choose a Career in High-Tech

Five units in mathematics in high school is the most effective predictor in Israel for future careers in science and high-tech. Doubling the percentage of graduates of the five-unit track, which reached 16.6% in 2021, has succeeded in moving the needle, leading to upward trends in university degrees in engineering and computers and in the rate of high-tech employees. However, for female students, who now constitute 50% of the graduates of the five-unit track in mathematics, this formula has not proven to be as effective as for the male students. At the universities’ engineering departments and in high-tech, female students and employees still constitute only 30%.

As part of the Trump Foundation’s emerging focus on this issue, we approached the Keshet TV Channel 12 Group. Keshet is planning to hold its annual “Influencers Conference,” scheduled for October 20, 2022. The conference is known to be very popular, hosting top decision-makers, ministers and members of Knesset, experts, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs. The conference brings Israel’s most important issues to center stage, using all media platforms with vast coverage reaching more than 75% of Israeli households.

The panel will also offer an opportunity to present key insights into the role of education, particularly at the middle school level. For example, only a minoruty of the students in excellence classes that prepare students for five units in physics, and computers are female. In all likelihood, this is a significant reason for why female high school students less frequently choose to major in physics and computers. The argument that will be presented is that encouraging female students to choose studying in an excellence class in middle school will open doors for them in high school and later on in life.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 504