Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Chunhua and Pucheng Counties - Girls can do IT! SUMMARY 
Unbalanced economic development and unbalanced allocation of resources are creating an education gap between China’s rural and urban students. Also gender stereotyping is still deeply embedded in China. The project aims to develop rural girls’ and boys’ potential, interest and confidence in learning Science, Technology and Mathematics (STEM), and to build their confidence to pursue a future career of their own choice. STEM education includes arts, robotics, coding, critical thinking, creative education, a growth mindset, gender equality and well balanced character building.  STEM Clubs for girls and boys (10-15yrs) will be established in primary and lower secondary schools. Methodologies for gender equal STEM education in rural schools in marginalized areas are introduced to local education authorities aiming at integration of STEM in the regular curriculum. The project is implemented by Plan International China for 3 years since September 2018. Today’s workplace is undergoing a radical transformation. Many jobs are disappearing as computers and robots take over routine tasks, and majority of jobs are changing as people and workplace must continually adapt to developments of new technologies and new communication channels. In China, the Ministry of Education released Chinese STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education white paper in 2017. The goal of the white paper is to improve the nature of knowledge and scientific literacy among children in China. In 2017 the state council issued the "new generation of AI (artificial intelligence) development plan", requiring primary and middle school students to take AI courses and promote programming education . However, this did not target schools in the rural areas of China. 
It is noted that the information technology course in rural schools are often occupied by other major courses;  hardly any of students were taught this course due to a lack of professional computer science teachers in the rural schools. Teachers in urban areas are not willing to relocate to rural areas to teach. With inadequate staffing, rural schools offer fewer and lower quality classes in the area of information technology. The capacity of rural teachers in teaching science and computer technology related subjects are very limited and they generally lack external resources and professional trainings to support them to conduct relevant activities, to promote rural children’s interest, potential and capacity in these fields. Additionally, there is a gap in educational material. The project will be implemented over 3 years. In Year 1, the project will mainly be focusing on further developing the pre STEM curriculum, including Robotics and life skills, in order to make it relevant and realistic to be used in the after school clubs consisting of rural girls and boys (age 10-14 in grade 4-8) in 10 targeted schools (6 primary schools and 4 junior secondary schools) Chunhua and Pucheng counties. During year 2 and 3, the project will scale up to the other 10 targeted schools (6 primary schools and 4 junior secondary schools) and also be focusing more on capacity building of local organizations, like Teenager Activity Centers, schools and education bureau. Continuous effort will be made in  strengthening children participatory development and gender awareness during the project and promote information sharing of gender-balanced STEM education model in other non-targeted areas. The detailed activities can be found in the logical framework attached to this project proposal. The project started off with a pilot stage from July till December 2017, which was fully supported by Plan Finland Office via its Smart up Challenge 2, an initiative to encourage innovative experiments focusing on girls and technology. The project will build on this pilot experience, and enrich the content of STEM education in rural schools, improve the teaching approach and innovate creative learning style, and scale up to more target schools. As the formal education in China is mired in a dreary culture of testing and competition, and the culture is now seeping down to early childhood education. Therefore, the project proposal is to start with younger children to implement the intervention through after school activities on STEM education in the project, so called pre-STEM education. The target group includes grade 4-6 and grade 7-8 children. The project will directly benefit 1,200 children (65% girl, 35% boy) from 20 rural primary and secondary schools in Chunhua County and Pucheng County in Shaanxi province. It will also directly benefit a cohort of 66 teachers including 60 teachers from target schools and 6 teachers from the teenager activity centres from each target county. Develop/adapt course pathway, robotic curriculum and student assessment methodology
Based on the lessons learned and experience in the pilot phase and a needs assessment, Plan International will work with Roboterra to develop or improve existing robotic curriculum and relevant computer tools with Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology for children, especially girls in rural schools to provide them opportunity to follow their interests and passions. They will also receive training on life skills, including gender equality, in order to increase their confidence, communication and decision making skills. 

Build local capacity to promote the gender-balanced STEM education in target schools
•	A local working team will be formed consisting of Plan International staff, Roboterra and Teenager Activity Centre of Chunhua and Pucheng Counties to deliver ToT training to 26 master teachers from 6 primary schools and 4 junior secondary schools and teachers from Teenager Activity Centre.
•	Master teachers will deliver a training to 40 teachers from the 20 targeted school. Follow-up support and guidance will be provided through regular monitoring visits by the local working team. At the same time, gender awareness and child protection trainings will be provided to the same target group.
•	Online teacher support network will be established and supported by the local working team and corporate partners ThoughtWorks, Kidscode.cn. Through this network, trained teachers will be able to exchange experiences and challenges concerning the implementation of the pre-STEM curriculum to students in each targeted school.
•	The local working team and County Education Bureaus will work together to arrange external learning visits and annual sharing sessions for dissemination of project experience, achievements, lessons and project approach etc. to schools in other counties. 

Introduction of gender-balanced robotic curriculum to 10 targeted schools
•	In the first year, 10 child technology clubs will be formed in 10 targeted schools (300 children) and the local working team will support these targeted schools to improve the hardware environment of the after school clubs to make it friendly for the student groups to work together. 
•	 Selected students are selected, trained teachers will deliver the gender-balanced robotic curriculum weekly to girls and boys in the after school club. These children will have 1-2 times per week practicals on building their robotic programming projects in the club. Students will present their group project of robotics design work in school clubs at the end of the semester, to illustrate what they created, how they created it and why. Teachers and others will review and provide children with suggestions and feedback about their projects and learning process.
•	2 Little Teaching assistants (children) in every school will be selected and trained to support the school club operation, and orient newcomers to encourage a culture of caring in the club. 

Organize technology and gender awareness-raising campaign in schools
•	The project will support a science and technology camp in schools, including engaging university students, on a chosen topic regarding technology, coding and design, IT change life and professional skills. These camps will be led by Corporate / Female role models. These events will give students a chance to learn something new or finesse existing skills to prepare them for many challenges in the real world and bridge the gap of the technology and start-up spaces. 
•	Gender awareness-raising campaign will be organized in all schools, focusing on girls as creators of technology and digital solutions.

Support Robotics Competition at county level or higher level
Chunhua and Pucheng Education Bureaus and Teenager Activity Centres will organise annual robotics competitions on county level. Each school recommends the excellent students or groups to participate in the competition or Hackathon where developers, designers, scientists, students and educators gather to collaborate on robotic programming projects including STEM solutions for any problems in life. This event gives students the chance to deepen their skills, work with experts, and learn something new. It is an open event that promotes gender awareness-raising and special competition awards will be set for girls.

Involve more students, their parents or caregivers, and teachers in the project
In order to enable more students, their parents or caregivers, and teachers to benefit from this project, the following activities will be launched:
•	A newsletter related to the course an project activities will be published each quarter for information sharing
•	The materials related to child protection, gender equality and life skills will be distributed to other students and teachers in project schools, and also to students’ caretakers, to improve the knowledge and skills of more people and to create a more friendly learning environment. The project will establish the online teacher’ support network and support local education bureaus to develop their promotion plan on pre-STEM education. These ways will gradually standardize their regular activities and make the alliance functional, during project implementing process, even after the project ends. Plan International China will continue to transfer its knowledge and skills to the stakeholders involved in this project, by contributing its growing technical resources to the online public platforms and the information sharing system that are to be set up in this project and will continue to function with support from partners upon project completion. The successful project model will be replicated in other areas of China where Plan International works, as part of the overall gender transformative programming approach being implemented under its Country Strategy in China. 
Building the capacity of the project partners will provide them with the skills and capacity to continue the work to implement and improve the project over time. This will significantly contribute to making the project and its outcomes sustainable and scalable.