Improving girls’ and women’s interest and participation in ICT in Poland

The Reform and Investment Task Force (SG REFORM) of the European Commission, the OECD Centre for Skills and the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills are co-operating to provide technical support to Poland through a project funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument. The national authority that requested technical support and will benefit from this project is the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs (Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji).

This project, “Improving girls’ and women’s interest and participation in ICT in Poland”, will help Poland better understand why women remain underrepresented in ICT-related studies and professions, and identify practical ways to increase their participation. The project will design and test new measurement tools, analyse barriers and success factors, and support the development of recommendations and an implementation concept for more gender-inclusive ICT pathways.

Poland has enjoyed solid economic growth in recent years, but faces growing demographic pressures, including an ageing population, emigration and skills shortages. 

Women remain notably underrepresented in ICT. Only 17.5% of ICT specialists in Poland are women, compared with an EU average of 19.5%, despite girls performing as well as boys in mathematics and science in national and international assessments. Yet stereotypes around “male” ICT professions and the lack of visible female role models continue to discourage girls from choosing ICT-related studies. At the same time, Poland has set ambitious goals in its Digital Competence Development Programme (DCDP), including raising the share of ICT specialists in the workforce and significantly increasing the share of women among them by 2030. This project will help Poland reach these targets by deepening understanding of the barriers girls and women face and how to overcome them.

This project will support Poland in designing, testing and implementing tools and approaches to boost girls’ and women’s participation in ICT education and careers. It will involve the Ministry of Digital Affairs, other relevant ministries and a broad range of stakeholders (schools, higher education institutions, employers, social partners and civil society).

Key activities include:

Assessment of interest and participation of girls and women in ICT. A Technical Expert Group will support the development of pilot survey tools targeting students, parents, teachers/schools and ICT professionals. These instruments will explore factors influencing interest in ICT, education choices and career trajectories, as well as barriers and enabling conditions at individual, school, socio-economic, regional and industry levels. The OECD and external experts will carry out pilot surveys in Poland, process and assess the data, and prepare an assessment report with conclusions and recommendations for future monitoring and data collection.

Report on solutions and recommended actions. Using the pilot survey results and international good practice, the OECD will analyse why women remain underrepresented among ICT professionals in Poland – from early interest and subject choice to graduation, research careers and employment. A dedicated report on possible solutions and recommended actions will propose concrete ways to increase girls’ and women’s participation in ICT.

Implementation guidance and monitoring concept. A study visit to an EU country with relatively high female participation in ICT will allow Polish stakeholders to see successful practices in action. Building on this and on stakeholder consultations in Poland, the OECD will develop an implementation concept report, detailing how priority actions can be put into practice (including institutional arrangements, legal and organisational needs) and how a regular monitoring exercise can track progress over time.

In the short and medium term, the project will equip Polish authorities and stakeholders with a deeper, evidence-based understanding of the obstacles and enabling conditions that shape girls’ and women’s access to ICT education and careers; pilot-tested tools and methodologies to regularly monitor interest, participation and barriers, and to improve data collection on gender and ICT; and a set of practical, prioritised recommendations and an implementation concept to guide policies and initiatives that encourage more girls and women to pursue ICT pathways.

In the longer run, this work is expected to contribute to promote a higher share of women among ICT students, graduates, researchers and professionals in Poland; progress towards Poland’s national targets under the Digital Competence Development Programme and EU-level goals related to digital skills, ICT specialists and gender convergence; and a more inclusive, innovative and competitive Polish digital economy, supported by a broader and more diverse ICT talent pool.

The project is expected to conclude in October 2027. 

Contact: oecdcentre4skills@oecd.org