“An issue that has existed for 20 years, but has never been treated.” They often face a glass roof, young women feel dissuasive by integrating technology training.
This dynamic, the government tries to stop it through the “Girls and Mathematics Plan”, announced in May 2025 by Elisabeth Borne and settled to encourage the students of the University and the secondary school to project themselves in scientific careers.
This plan is derived from the report “Girls and Mathematics”, published in February 2025. He is interested in matters called Stem (Computer, Engineering and Mathematics Science Physics) and their popularity among students, from university to higher education. The observation is clear, the lessons related to computer science and engineering are the most rejected by young women.
More women in science, what advantages?
Why does this need to include women in technology? Actually, there are many challenges, especially with respect to recent technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
We know, for example, that this set of technologies is full of sexist prejudices. Including women in the development of new technologies could help prevent these biases and avoid certain derivations during their conceptions and training.
But it is far from being the only advantage. Economically speaking, it has been demonstrated several times that a mixed team was more efficient than a team only composed of men or women. According to the report “Girls and Mathematics”, the small part of women in the scientific sectors impact the French economy up to 10 billion euros per year.
As “evidence”
To understand the origin of this disinterest, Tech & Co met with Lolita ABOA, a student at the Polytech Lille School of Engineering in Statistical Engineering and Statistical Engineering. The young woman distinguished himself this year by winning the Award of Women Digital Engineer. Upon arriving in France “at the age of 2 years”, Lolita grew “in a home for isolated women in the suburbs of Toulon.” Profiles like yours are extremely rare in the School of Engineering.
This is without counting on his mother, who despite the living conditions far from being favored, taught Lolita to appreciate mathematics: “He knew that mathematics could be afraid, so he established a game system so that I bring good grades.” But he arrived at University, Lolita had to face an invisible barrier in front of all young women.
In reality, “the evidence” of which the young engineer speaks refers to a complete set of insidious mechanisms that discourage girls to embark on computer sciences or mathematics (which according to beliefs are intimately linked).
In school 42, the beginning of the programming sessions reserved for women are organized regularly and discover swimming pools. In one of these sessions, Tech & Co met three young students, Inesse, Asthma and Saïna, who report a testimony quite similar to Lolita Aboa.
“I didn’t know computer science at high school,” says Astma. Inès, on the other hand, explained that even his teachers deterred him to go to Sti2D, a technological sector with computer lessons. “They told me: ‘Don’t go there, there are only children,” reports the young woman. In more general terms, the three students agree that they have the “impression of shame” when they are interested in computer science.
An ineffective baccalaureate reform
Established since the beginning of the 2021 school year, the BAC reform completely transformed the lessons into high school. In the general courses, the S (scientific) classes are (economic and social) and L (literary) disappear and give way to the teachings of specialties, mandatory options chosen at the end of the second and that will be added to a common base (with French, philosophy, foreign languages, etc.).
The choice of these lessons is decisive for post-bacalao. The majority of university schools and courses will favor the recruitment of students whose specialties correspond to the courses they provide. Therefore, a student who has chosen the teachings of mathematical specialties and engineering sciences will have many more possibilities to integrate an engineering school than the student who will have chosen teachings of literary specialties. This Bac “A la Letter” is indicative of several stereotypes.
In this graph, we observe that the proportion of girls has fallen slightly between 2020 and 2021 in the purely scientific BAC. In 2021, this percentage was improved by the choice of life and land sciences (SVT). As for Stem, high school girls are still largely in the minority.
But scientific materials, it has the lowest parity with much. This BAC reform will be a failure in this issue, since girls represent only 10% of the double of mathematical specialty lessons: digital and computer sciences (NSI) in the general terminal in 2021.
40% to 15% of women Computer Engineering
If this reform has not dissuaded girls to go to higher scientific studies, it has not encouraged them either. Actually, the workforce stagnates. The report reports 24,000 Bachelières in 2020 that will continue in scientific studies, will be the same number in 2021. In total, 8% of the girls who obtained a general BAC in 2023 were oriented in scientific studies.
A data perfectly illustrates this phenomenon, it is the number of entries in the School of Engineering in BAC+1. Only some of these schools are recruiting at the end of high school. Then we notice that for children, the number of recruits has continued to increase between 2018 and 2023 that goes from 10,000 to 14,000 students.
For girls, madness for engineering is not the same. Certainly there is an increase between 2018 and 2020, we go from 4,500 to 5,500 recruited students. But since 2021 (year of BAC reform), this figure decreases to reach around 5,200 in 2023.
This type of evolution has already been studied by researcher Isabelle Collet. In his work published in 2008, we observed that more than 40% of computer engineers were women. They were only 15% to exercise this same profession in 2004. In another study conducted by the researcher published in 2020, this figure fell to less than 10% in advanced fields such as AI or cybersecurity.
This observation is not only French, it is observed in all OECD countries. “No country has found the solution,” explains Tech & Co Olivier Pérokpohou, inspector General of Education and author of the report “Girls and Mathematics”. However, the inspector points out an exception, in Morocco, where 40% of students in the engineering school are women (where they have 30% in France).
Source: BFM TV
