S12 Advertiser retains sole responsibility for contentADVERTISEMENT FEATUREHere’s a strange paradox: In
the Middle East, where many
countries face stark gender
inequality, women earn more
science and math degrees per
capita than their counterparts
in the United States and
Europe. In fact, up to 57% of
all STEM (science, technology,
engineering and math)
graduates in Arab countries are
women, according to UNESCO.
Compare this with the
United States, where women
account for no more than
35% of all undergraduate
degrees in STEM, or even theEuropean Union, where there
are roughly twice as many male
graduates in STEM studies as
there are female graduates.
On the other hand, take
Qatar, a small country with a
population of just 2.8 million.
The country’s first university,
Qatar University, opened
its doors only in 1973, with
separate faculties for men
and women. By 2012, there
were almost twice as many
female students enrolled in the
university as there were males.
Bolstered by the country’s
fervor for higher education,more women are attending
Qatar’s private universities
— and more are pursuing
traditionally male-dominated
career paths, including
engineering and science. The
Qatar Foundation’s 3,000-acre
Education City campus is home
to eleven K-12 schools and nine
leading universities — including
branches of Georgetown,
Cornell and Texas A&M. It also
stands alongside a science and
technology park, runs global
innovation forums, and includes
a modern art museum, start-up
incubators and more.Many of these Qatari
campuses are already proving
as big of a draw for women
as their parent institutions.
At Texas A&M University in
Qatar, women account for
46% of the total student body;
at Texas A&M’s main U.S.
campus, women account for
48% of the enrollment. “For
people who have never been
to the Middle East, they may
well think women here are
somehow oppressed, covered
up and kept at a different level,”
said Lama Al-Oreibi, reservoir
engineer at Royal Dutch ShellQATAR WOMEN IN STEM
Arab women are thriving in science and math education but like women elsewhere, they lag when
it comes to careers in these fields. As recent research shows, bridging this gap matters not just for
women, but for the future of us all.Untitled-1357 1 28/10/2019 18:04