Abstract
Worldwide the participation of females in the field of information technology is low and the attrition rate high. This paper reports on the student enrolment figures for IT courses according to gender at a university in Johannesburg, South Africa and determines what the main reasons are that influence females to enrol for an IT course. Data was collected from a database of 5859 students enrolled for an IT course for the years 2013 to 2017 at a university in Johannesburg. Statistics showed that the percentage of female students enrolled in either an IT degree or diploma for 2013 to 2017 was 21%. It was determined that the main reasons that females choose to pursue an IT field is their interest in the course, the number of job opportunities available and the support that they received from their families. This is the first phase in an ongoing research study to understand why females are underrepresented in IT courses. Future studies will explore what interventions can be put in to place to attract females to study IT courses.