AN award-winning teacher who is dedicated to closing the gender gap in computing science and cyber security has won praise from industry leaders as she launches a charitable initiative to attract schoolgirls into the sector.
Toni Scullion, who teaches at St Kentigern’s Academy in Blackburn, West Lothian, is preparing for the formal launch of dressCode, a modern-day lunch club for female pupils to learn and use coding.
Over the past few years the 32-year-old has helped three schoolgirls from St Kentigern’s form Turing’s Testers, a cyber security team that has been highly placed in several Scottish and UK competitions.
Their success helped Scullion and the trio land the Champion of Champions award at last year’s Scottish Cyber Awards.
Scullion was also recognised as Cyber Security Teacher of the Year.
Mandy Haeburn-Little, chief executive of the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC), said: “For Scotland to reach its potential as a leading cyber security nation, it needs talent coming through. Not only that, the threat posed by criminals online is diverse – and so it needs a diverse workforce to deliver the creativity required to combat this effectively.”
dressCode is an all-girls code club aiming to close the gender gap, exploring game and app design, web development and cyber security. An interactive website and syllabus will help girls from around Scotland become involved and learn important, practical skills, with potential for future events and collaborations.
Scullion, who originally hails from Gorebridge in Midlothian, said: “If you can code, you can change the world – and I want girls to feel empowered about this. It’s just dire when you look at the gender diversity numbers in Scotland and the uptake of girls in STEM roles. It is worrying that there are so many schools with no computing specialists or exposure to those skills either. I just felt like I needed to do something to help.”
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