We RISE by lifting others Dr Tebogo Mashifana
Growing up in a small village in Limpopo meant limited access to opportunities and limited exposure to men and women who can model my role. The professions that surrounded me, and still surround many young in my community, are not beyond teaching, health practitioners, police, and security. Because young people are only exposed to these professions on a daily basis they tend to believe these should also be their reality. The reality is, in the 35 years of my existence, nothing much has changed. The learners are still relieving my experience. Many others have had a similar upbringing as mine. Many somehow also stumbled on their careers because of the lack of career guidance and mentorship.
In one of her studies, Professor Salome Schulze attributed the failure to meet outputs by academics in higher education institutions to the lack of mentorship. Surprisingly, when focusing on gender-related issues, it is often not a major challenge to attract women in the fields such as STEM, but ensuring that they remain there and never drop out as students and never leave the fields when they get to the workplace, seems to be the real challenge. The challenge begins early on in the women’s careers, as students and as graduates. There are only 35% of female students in a STEM subject, this is the data from 2016 to 2019, and it has not changed much.
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