ENGINEERING has always been seen as a man's world, and female engineers are few and far between. But there are some shining lights in the sector. Encouragingly, young women are also choosing engineering at university.

"Great difficulty is still experienced today in attracting and retaining female engineers, who comprise 30 percent of the available workforce in the sector. Only one in 10 engineers in South Africa is a woman," says Hannelie Nel, the vice-dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at UJ. Nel is also the president of the Southern African Institute for Industrial Engineering.

New methods should be developed to attract young women into the sector, she says; one way would be to highlight the achievements of women engineers and the way they thought.

Read more: joburg.org.za