The education system continues to reinforce stereotypes of women that effectively limit the career choices of female students.

• To date, the publicly funded school system appears to be making only the slightest gestures toward encouraging girls and teen-age women to consider a career, to consider a range of careers or to continue with Maths and Science courses throughout their school years.*

Although the majority of female students are beginning to realize that they will work outside the home for at least some part of their lives, they do not yet perceive the need to train for job sectors in which employment will be available in the future. Thus, they remain under-represented in the courses which lead to the majority of such jobs.

One way to encourage girls to prepare themselves for a broad range of jobs is to provide them with role models of women in a variety of occupations, including senior positions in the school system. Thus, a further goal for the decade ahead is to increase the representation of women in educational administration and in the faculties where they are currently under-represented (i.e., Maths, Sciences and Technologies).

Another critical area to consider in educating women for job sectors in which employment will be available is to ensure that girls and women learn how to use computer technology. The present restriction of computers to the Maths area in schools (where female enrollment is low) is indicative of a growing trend towards male domination of the computer study field:

• A 1982 survey** of Secondary School course enrollment in Ontario revealed that young women comprise about half of the data processing course enrollments, but only one quarter to one third of "Mathematics: Computer Science" courses. Integrating female students into Math and Computer Science courses and integrating computers across the entire curriculum is urgently needed if this trend is to be halted.

Recent research* indicates that, at this time, girls, teen-age women and adult women believe that computer skills are not the domain of either sex. This study also shows that a large majority of respondents of all ages prefer work with computers to all other jobs they consider to be "non-traditional". It would be ironic if the education system, which is committed to increasing the career options of female students, becomes instead the transmitter of the notion that jobs involving computer technology are more appropriate for men than for women.

* Science Council" of Canada. The Science Education of Women in Canada. A Statement of Concern, 1982.

** Ontario Ministry of Education. Report on the Survey of Secondary Course Enrollment by Sex. Ontario Management Systems Branch, 1982.

* Marketing Non-Traditional Jobs to Girls and Women, Avebury Research & Consulting Limited. Employment and Immigration Canada, 1985.