I think one element that differentiates Canada—and other western countries, for that matter—from many emerging countries is the fact that this whole area of what we call the STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—is not as valued among young people and among parents as it is in other parts of the world. It is especially sometimes devalued with regard to opportunities for women.
In universities—I can speak of my own—we have the same thing happening in all engineering schools. We have developed a number of outreach programs over the years to reach out to school-age children and to involve their parents, their teachers, and their guidance counsellors in trying to generate or to increase that interest in science, technology, engineering, and math.
If you want to enter the engineering profession, the first step is to get into an engineering school, and obviously you need to have a strong background in science and math. That background is not something you will acquire only in grade 11 and grade 12. The path to that takes a number of years. We need to reach out to those kids much before the time they get into high school.
The network of NSERC chairs for women in engineering and science has been very helpful in that regard in allowing us to have champions across the country who are developing and delivering those programs. We are also doing a lot of things individually at each of our school levels to basically tailor what we are doing in terms of outreach through the specific situations in which we operate.
It's a major challenge. It was mentioned that the proportion of female students in the engineering program has basically not changed significantly over the last few years, despite the fact that in absolute numbers it has increased because we have more students in our schools than we did 10 or 15 years ago.
The fact is that we have not been successful so far in increasing or rebalancing our student body compared with what has happened in other professions. The medical profession has achieved that balance. Law has done the same thing. In engineering, we're still facing major challenges in generating that interest and excitement among young women for those career opportunities.