Phnom Penh (FN), Feb. 13 – ASEAN-UK SAGE is the UK’s flagship education programme in Southeast Asia, supporting girls and marginalised communities to access education and improve foundational learning.

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UK in collaboration with ASEAN Secretariat opened applications for the second year of Women in STEM Scholarships under the ASEAN-UK Supporting the Advancement of Girls’ Education (ASEAN-UK SAGE) programme. This initiative reaffirms the UK’s commitment to empowering women in Southeast Asia and Timor-Leste to overcome barriers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), enabling more women to lead in these fields.

This fully funded scholarship programme offers 11 exceptional women from 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) and Timor-Leste the opportunity to pursue Master’s degrees at two of the UK’s leading universities: The University of Warwick and The University of Manchester.

In AMS, there is a mixed picture of gender parity in access and performance in STEM subjects. Despite outperforming boys in mathematics and science in primary and secondary education, but women remain underrepresented in STEM in tertiary education for only 19.3% women compared to 39.8% men obtain STEM degrees. Women doctoral degree students are a minority. According to UNESCO, women account for a minority of the world’s researchers. In 2019, fewer than 30% of researchers worldwide were women and only 30% of female students select STEM related fields in higher education. Specifically for East Asia and the Pacific, women researchers accounted for 25%.

This disparity continues into the workforce, with the 2022 UN progress report on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, Gender Equality, indicating that only 20% of jobs in STEM sector are held by women globally and only 16.5% women inventors are associated with a patent.

ASEAN-UK SAGE Programme tackles gender barriers to basic digital skills for employment, aiming to support the development of basic digital skills for marginalised groups to improve employment opportunities and therefore quality of life, which helps narrow the development gap in ASEAN. The ASEAN-UK SAGE Women in STEM Scholarships support this goal by providing financial assistance to disadvantaged women from ASEAN countries and Timor- Leste to access UK education in key STEM-related fields.

In 2024, the first year of the ASEAN-UK SAGE scholarships, 12 women from nine countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Timor-Leste) went to the UK to study a range of STEM subjects from Environmental Data Science and Machine Learning to Engineering Business Management at master’s level at Imperial College London and the University of Warwick. They will be returning home after the end of the UK academic year.

Secretary-General of ASEAN, Kao Kim Hourn said, "ASEAN’s workforce is vast, and it is imperative to harness the full potential of humanity by encouraging both girls and boys, men and women, to pursue and excel in STEM education, which is critical for the future world of work. By doing so, we ensure that ASEAN remains at the forefront of global economic and technological progress. This scholarship comes at a timely moment as we in ASEAN look towards increasing the involvement of ASEAN women in STEM fields, reinforcing our commitment to gender inclusivity and sustainable development in alignment with regional and global priorities."

Dominic Williams, British Ambassador to Cambodia said, “I am delighted that the UK is supporting amazing Cambodian women to study STEM subjects at world-class UK universities, empowering them to drive innovation and the uptake of advanced technology in Cambodia. Unsurprisingly, evidence from across the globe shows that when women are excluded from technological development, women’s different needs are not taken into account in the design of new solutions. Ensuring more Cambodian women obtain cutting-edge STEM skills will therefore support greater equality, while simultaneously building the skills Cambodia needs to support the next stage of its development journey.”

For more information on the ASEAN–UK SAGE Women in STEM Scholarships, please
visit: https://www.britishcouncil.id/en/programmes/education/sage

For further information on the ASEAN-UK SAGE Women in STEM Scholarships, please contact:
[email protected]
[email protected]
=FRESH NEWS

Photo from UK Mission to ASEAN