Good practice:

Tekniksprånget

Tekniksprånget allows upper secondary school graduates to get pr
The Technology inspire to higher technical education by giving a clearer picture of what awaits after the studies, through four months of paid internships young people (who have finished high school and are 21 years old or younger) throughout Sweden get the chance to test the engineering profession in practice.
Over 200 employers participate in the project and offer internships in over 100 locations around Sweden.
This practice stems from the need for more engineers in the Swedish labour market. In ths regard, two major issues are noted:
1. In Sweden there is an overall lack of engineers.
2. Of the people attending engineering programs, the proportion of women is only about 30%, although the interest is slowly increasing.

By comparison, the percentage of women is 51% in business economist programs, 54 % in medical schools and 57 % in legal education. In total, for the ten most popular vocational programs, the proportion of female applicants is 58%. In all areas, except technical and officer training, the gender distribution is even or women dominated.
The technology leap programme is run by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and it is a collaborative project in which Swedish employers, together with the government, are investing in securing the country's future skills supply.
The Program does not target women specifically, but it embraces a gender perspective to guarantee equal opportunities.

The project is funded by the Swedish government, allocating funds for two years at a time. Employers provide supervisors and pay wages to trainees (who receive between 1170 and 1300€ a month).
The workers union is also involved, and together with them there is a special agreement on wages.

Between 2012 and 2018 there has been 17000 aplicants and 4100 admitted.
• 80 % of all former interns are studying or mean to study a higher technical education.
• 75 % of former interns that are today studying a higher technical education say that the internship affected their choice of education.
• 50 % of the interns that are admitted are women. An equal share also study higher technical education after the internship.

This initiative aims at gender equality whitin the thecnical sector. Since there are 30 % men studiyng in engeenering programs, but the program have an 50% female participation and can therefore be regarded as a success. The most important action to achive gender equality within the program is to be aware of what kind of role models are used in the communication. Are both gender represented in pictures when marketing the sector? Are there female role models avaible in the companies hosting the trainees?
Important to show real opportunities for young girls to gain insight into what the work as an engineer can actually look like.
Moreover, the cooperative model where the public sector works together with companies, to provide young people with the opportunity to participate in paid internships, is a scheme that creates benefits for all the actors involved and could be transferred to a regional level as well.