Covestro, the global manufacturer of high-performance polymer materials, inaugurated #STEM4GirlsFestival2018 at the Nehru Science Center, Mumbai on Monday, 8th October where they reached out to over 1200 girls with a huge celebration to promote STEM education amongst them. In continuance with the effort towards promoting science education in India, Covestro along with Greenlight for Girls, Nehru Science Centre & Chandra Mohan Foundation is proud to present the third edition of the STEM workshop which is being conducted in 6 cities with the second workshop which was held in Calicut on 08th – 09th November 2018.
In Calicut, Covestro engaged with over 350 girls across 13 different schools. During this festive season, Covestro (India) aims to give one more reason to celebrate with #Stem4GirlsFestival2018 by involving over 3000 girl students across India in science experiments and interaction.
On this occasion, Ajay Durrani, MD, Covestro (India) highlighted how important educating a girl child is, “Science is the key in finding sustainable solutions in every industry and in various economic and social challenges faced by the world. Hence, our target is to popularize STEM4Girls to potentially create a platform to build a career for these young girls.”
An MHRD report shows that only 8.52% of the girls enrolled in higher education were pursuing bachelor degrees in engineering or technology in 2012-13. This was far below the national average of 13.27%. This is a major concern as the loser in this scenario is not just the women who do not get a chance to chase their dreams but also science itself, which fails to benefit from other points of view. On the contrary year after year, in school exams, we hear of how girls have outshone boys, but when it comes to those who take up research in later life, the number of women is minuscule. This means that many of our best brains that showed the maximum potential do not pick research as a career.
On this occasion, Ajay Durrani, MD, Covestro (India) highlighted how important educating a girl child is, “Science is the key in finding sustainable solutions in every industry and in various economic and social challenges faced by the world. Hence, our target is to popularize STEM4Girls to potentially create a platform to build a career for these young girls. We want all these students to be curious, courageous and colourful while they take this leap in life, as these are also the core values that Covestro practises.”
