Today, January 24, is the International Day of Education. For an educator and advocate like Jennifer Yu Cheng, every day is an opportunity to close gender gaps in the system
The idea that hit Jennifer Yu Cheng during the pandemic was simple but powerful: Ready girls for the future by closing the gender gap in education.
The JYC Girls Impact Foundation (JYCGIF) was founded at the end of 2020 with the mission to “open the door for all girls to unleash their boundless potential and make a positive, lasting impact everywhere they go…[and] harness the power to empower girls to become future ready leaders.” The foundation aims to fulfil this mission through a range of innovative programs, including its flagship 10,000 Girls4Girls Coding+ initiative, which encourages girls to learn to code, and then in turn to teach coding in their communities.
For Yu Cheng, JYCGIF is the capstone on a career in education that began 14 years ago. She herself graduated with a degree in industrial engineering operations research with a minor in economics from Columbia University in the US in 2003, entering the world of finance upon her return to Hong Kong. After a few years working at Goldman Sachs’ fixed-income securities division, Yu Cheng co-founded Arch Education with Jennifer Ma in 2009 as a startup that sought to prepare students for higher education abroad. The success of Arch Education led Yu Cheng to establish the integrated-learning collective CTF Education Group in 2017, focusing on school management and on K-12 education.
Read Jennifer Yu Cheng's full profile on Asia's Most Influential
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted industries everywhere, but Yu Cheng saw that it could also potentially exacerbate gender gaps in education and employment. Even as the pandemic accelerated the rate of digital transformation, it also rolled back some of the progress that women had made in the workforce.
“With the global pandemic, it was anticipated that we would face an even more accelerated global demographic crisis. This impacts talent pipeline for the global workforce,” she tells Tatler in an email interview. “Thus, I believe it is critical, now more than ever, to invest in and nurture our local talent pipeline through education. I believe there is particular urgency to close the opportunities gap in terms of women in STEAM fields through K-12 education and to cultivate a stronger talent pipeline of women leaders across all fields.”
As one would expect from an educator, Yu Cheng brings the numbers: Only one in six students in Asia who are studying STEM subjects in university are women, she points out. And in Hong Kong, a highly developed territory that enjoys one of the highest Human Development Index rankings in the world, the figure might be slightly higher “but nowhere near equal,” she says.
This inequality shows itself in the workforce: the 2022 figures from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department show that there is still an HK$5,900 gap in median monthly earnings between men and their women counterparts, says Yu Cheng. And the way to close this gap is by helping girls develop the relevant skills and competencies that will allow them to meet the needs of the digital age. “By focusing on girls' education, we can ensure that they have access to quality education and opportunities to gain the skills needed for the future job market.”
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