Another jointly sponsored program, in Winnipeg's Kildonan East Division, involves 5 female and 15 male students in grades 10 to 12. Manitoba has a number of other programs in its schools, but I purposely wanted to mention the Brandon program because it shows the trend towards involving younger and younger age groups. I will discuss some of the other programs in a moment, but I want to re-emphasize the sometimes not-so-subtle sex stereotyping that has entered the computer field with this true story.

My colleague, Manitoba's Education Minister, Maureen Hemphill, shortly after becoming Minister, took a tour of a community college in Winnipeg. (I must mention her, because, after all, I am representing her here.) Anyway, on reaching the computer area, she was literally dragged in to see a very sophisticated computer the school was especially proud of.

Mrs. Hemphill was told she could ask the computer any question she wanted about the school, and the computer would have the correct answer in a matter of seconds. The computer, Mrs. Hemphill was told, had never given a wrong answer.

Intrigued by all this, Mrs. Hemphill typed in to the computer: "What is the floor space of the college?" The lights on the computer flickered, the wheels with the magnetic tapes whirled, and in a few seconds, the answer came out: "The answer to your question, Mr. Minister, is. . . ." Well, so much for chauvinistic computers. If women are to become literate about computers, computers better become literate about women.

The onus will be on women to see that both occur. Much is at stake for women. Let me explain: according to the Science Council of Canada, 30,000 positions are now open in the high-tech industry; it is predicted that, by 1985, Canada will need 8,000 engineers and Ph.D. scientists, and only half that number are likely to be available.

From a job-placement point of view, this is encouraging. But Dr. David Suzuki, perhaps Canada's best known scientist, has emphasized that, not only the lack of literacy in computers, but the lack of literacy in science in general threatens our democratic institutions, because citizens are ill-equipped to decide questions involving use of new technology and serious moral questions about the nature of humanity. Dr. Suzuki contends (and it is difficult to disagree with him) that these issues are far too important to leave to politicians or scientists alone.

And if the situation is poor for scientific training in Canada, it is particularly poor for women. In 1980 only 8 per cent of those who earned Bachelor of Science and Engineering degrees were women. The number was a little better in Mathematics and Physical Sciences, where the total percentage of female graduates in 1980 was 28 per cent. In the computer field, even at the community-college level, men dominate the percentages.

In computer technology this past year, 96 per cent of the enrolment at Red River Community College in Winnipeg was male. And believe it or not, that is actually an improvement over 1977, when 100 per cent was male.

Conditions are not likely to change very quickly, unless we do something about the role models of girls in schools. For example, a study done in British Columbia in 1978 showed that there were only 12 per cent of junior high school teachers who were female. And in senior high the situation was worse. Only 6 per cent were women. There is no reason to believe that statistics from Manitoba would be significantly different.

Dr. Meredith M. Kimball perhaps raised the issue best when she addressed a "Workshop on Science Education of Women in Canada," sponsored by the Science and Education Committee of the Science Council of Canada. She concluded: "It is time to stop debating how large the sex differences are, if they exist at all, or where they come from. We must focus on the important question: Why is it that the difference in participation of men and women in scientific fields is so large, when sex differences in intellectual abilities are so small?"

Clearly, there is need for affirmative action when it comes to girls in school and science education, particularly computer science. In a very useful document entitled, Who Turns the Wheel: Proceedings of a Workshop on the Science Education of Women in Canada, the following six points are made. They, in fact, summarize much of what I have already said.