Reorientation and Re-skilling

EXPECTED IMPACT 2:

A Changed Landscape of Work – Gender Equity, Reorientation and Re-skilling

ICTs are the leading factor in boosting innovation and creativity in value chains across industry and service sectors 30 . It is expected that the ICT and science industry will gain increased momentum as an enhanced pillar for the socio-economic development landscape of the country bringing forward package of technology solutions to assist companies in moving forward post COVID-19 and responding to learned challenges faced during the pandemic.

The ICT sector should be an area of untapped opportunities for a new generation of women. Now more than ever, it has become very important to attract and train more women to the ICT and engineering sector. Concurrently, enhancing he capacity of elderly women to access the internet and online media is equally important in a bid to make the latter feel mainstreamed into society. Therefore, existing programs therefore have to be strengthen and expanded to include all cohorts of women.

New sectors of ICT, Artificial Intelligence and application of ICT will be fast-tracked to achieve greater efficiency in the process of production of goods and services. However, for women to enter these sectors with a competitive edge, there needs to be a paradigm shift from studying traditional female dominated subjects to science and technology.

At present, women are under-represented in science related fields such as Engineering (2.0% against 10.3% of men) and Information Technology (5.4% against 15.0% of men). The persistent under-representation of women in ICT and ICT-related fields calls for renewed efforts to engage female students early and effectively there-in. An added value is that as the ICT sector is constantly changing, requiring new set of skills and sophistication which lead to competitive pay. Therefore, applied human talent with the right skill sets will continue to be the key for the building of a vibrant and diversified ICT sector. Having more women in the ICT sector should also be smart economics for businesses given that technology consumers, women are important market influencers.

Statistics in Mauritius show that girls perform better than men in the educational sector (with 81.7% at the Higher School Certificate Level). Policies should be put

30 ITU, 2012, A Bright Future in ICT Opportunities For A New Generation of Women, Available Online at https://www.itu.int/en/

ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Women-and-Girls/Girls-in-ICT-Portal/Documents/itu_bright_future_for_women_in_ict-english.pdf,

Last Accessed 18 April 2020

in place to encourage women to continue to reskill themselves or take personal development courses with the right gender sensitive conducive environment to evolve in.

Furthermore, the specificity of Mauritius being an island state provides the potential of capitalizing on the blue economy if women are invited to tap into new sectors of the blue economy for their economic empowerment.

New modes of working should be a new normal and as a way of doing smart business. With a re-tuning by companies shifting towards work-from-home, flexi-time and telecommuting, the impact of telecommuting for women will be especially positive, with benefits in terms of an increased level of flexibility to juggle their care roles and paid work. Concurrently, it may also be promoted as a new strategy of pushing forward the gender equality and equity agenda enabling men to also be more active in the household.

Expected Impact

A Changing landscape of work- emerging sectors Mitigation Strategies

Attracting and training more women to the ICT sectors including emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence

Creating Incubators for innovative thinking in science and technology for girls

Conducting Career Guidance for Women to enter the STEM stream.

Instituting policies for gender equity such as telecommuting, work-from-home and flexi-time