Starter Kit. Idea 448 of 500. Cluster 23
Girls' coding and engineering clubs in the districts, since the boys already have them
The mechanism, from the book
The single largest unused asset in the country is sitting at home, and the reasons are practical, not attitude.
The first step
Request a classroom on a Saturday from the principal of one district school, and ask a local engineer, a programmer or a university student home for the holidays to lead a first session. Send a note to the parents of girls in the upper classes offering it at a small monthly fee. The proof is a full first session and parents who pay for the next month.
- Who pays first
- Parents of girls in the upper classes who want their daughters ready for engineering and computing courses, paying a small monthly fee.
- What leaves today
- Women are 65% of the university intake but 32% of the workforce; technical skills learned early lead to the jobs that keep them working.
Ask first
- Information and Communication Technology Agency. Ask whether they support coding clubs in district schools with materials or volunteers.
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask which engineering skills courses girls could move on to after the club.
Check before you spend
Confirm written permission from the principal, the parents' consent for every girl, an adult on site at every session, and a safe way home afterwards.
Find out these three numbers
- How many girls would come on a Saturday?
- What would a laptop or a kit cost for each pair of girls?
- Which local engineer or student would lead the first sessions?
A comparison from the book
Singapore. Chapter One
"A wedding conversation moves on evidence, not on ministries."
Parents change their minds when they see a girl from the district who did it.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.