“In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by … offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one.” ~ President Obama, 2016 State of the Union Address
Computer Science (CS) education, particularly for underrepresented populations such as women and people of color, has been an area of focus for Symantec. We realize the importance of addressing those dire statistics facing our industry: women compose less than one-third of the technical employees, and African-Americans less than three percent, at some of the largest technology companies. It has been an issue that has been top of mind for the technology industry and the nonprofits dedicated to undertaking the problem. On January 30th a momentous announcement came from the White House – the Computer Science for All Initiative– a new plan to expand computer science education and access for all students in K-12. The President’s Computer Science for All Initiative calls for:
- $4 billion in funding for states and $100 million directly for school districts in his forthcoming budget to expand K-12 CS by training teachers, expanding access to high-quality instructional materials, and building effective regional partnerships.
- $135 million in Computer Science funding to become available starting this year from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Corporation for National And Community Service (CNCS)
- Expanding access to prior NSF supported programs and professional learning communities through their CS10k Initiative that led to the creation of more inclusive and accessible CS curriculum including Exploring CS and Advanced Placement (AP) CS Principles among others.
- Involving even more governors, mayors, and education leaders to help boost CS following the leadership of states like Delaware, Hawaii, Washington, Arkansas, and more than 30 school districts that have already begun to expand CS opportunities.
- Engaging CEOs, philanthropists, creative media, technology, and education professionals to deepen their CS commitments. More than 50 organizations are making commitments.
At Symantec, we are committed to continued support of CS education for all. By 2020, it is estimated that one million computer science jobs will go unfilled because there are not enough students graduating with the right skills. That is why one of our goals is to excite, engage and educate 1 million students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education through global nonprofit partnerships, with an emphasis on computer science and cybersecurity, by 2020 with an investment of $20 million. Around 60 percent of our philanthropic dollars goes to education and so far we have reached 745,285 students with STEM education. We’ve supported organizations such as Code.org, whose mission is to bring Computer Science education to students globally, by encouraging our employees to volunteer with the organization, supporting the Hour of Code initiative, and our stakeholders agree, they voted for Code.org to be the winner of a $10,000 grant. We’ve had longstanding partnerships with the Boys & Girls Club of America, Teach for America and Science Buddies. We’ve even developed our own signature program, Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3), a collaborative effort to address the cybersecurity workforce gap by providing disengaged youth with targeted training in cybersecurity.
January 30th was a milestone for all involved in the advancement of STEM and Computer Science education. We are proud the U.S. government is supporting computer science education in schools for it is a big step forward in achieving access for all. Currently, only a quarter of U.S. schools offer computer science courses, and even less count the courses towards high school graduation. This limited access creates extensive disparities. Unfortunately, there are even great disparities within the schools that do offer CS courses – of the students who took the Advanced Placement CS exams in 2015, only 22 percent of them were girls and only 13 percent were African America or Latino. If we want to achieve the diversity in tech that we need, these numbers need to increase. We look forward to this new initiative taking shape across our schools and are proud to be a supporter of these efforts.
For more information, contact us at community_relations@symantec.com