The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Hon Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has Inaugurated the Seats for Ladies in Stem Initiative (S4LIS).

As a mastermind of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications S4LIS yearns to bridge the vast male-female gap within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic (STEM) ecosystem in Ghana.

In her keynote address at the launch of the initiative in Accra, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful said any development agenda championed by government will not gloss over the need to implement interventions to address the inequality in education and specific job environments.

She stressed on the need to strategically formulate policies to tackle the gender inequality that has crippled the female gender in disadvantageous situations.
According to her it stops their growth and development and compromised the optimal utilization of human capital in various countries.

Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful said, The percentage of females graduating from tertiary education from the engineering fields is below 30% for many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Consequently, scientific work and technological innovation are missing women’s invaluable perspectives and critical contributions.

She said increasing women’s participation in STEM careers has the power to close the gender pay gap and boost women’s cumulative earnings by $299 billion over the next ten years, expediting global economic development.

Thus, women’s participation in STEM fields could spur economic growth and promote gender equality worldwide, she added.