It isn’t any surprise that there aren’t as many women in the technology sector as there are men. Companies and organizations are always trying to come up with new ways to make the field more attractive for women, or to help women get started, and while there has been some improvement, the problem remains.  

In another effort to invest in women IT skills, Google has partnered up with Code School to provide thousands of women and minorities with three free months of Code School.

“It’s no secret that diversity isn’t the tech community’s strong point—and we’re always looking for opportunities to help change that,” wrote Gregg Pollack, CEO of Code School in a blog post. “Together, our goal is to invest in women and minorities so they can continue developing their technical skill sets. Having access to self-learning programs (such as Code School) is instrumental in that.”

Pollack noted that only a quarter of today’s IT roles are held by women, and African-Americans only make up 3% of engineers and scientists.

“The situation is clear: We have a long way to go in order to create a diverse, open and inclusive tech community,” he wrote.

This partnership is different from other initiatives to teach coding because it supports people along their learning journey with continuous learning for all levels of technology professionals, according to Pollack. Code School offers beginner, intermediate and experienced courses along with Google-related technology courses.

“It’s no secret that diverse minds drive innovation, and that access to resources will help us level the playing field for more great minds to join the technology industry,” Google wrote on its Women Techmakers page.

Google recently disclosed its own diversity statistics and said that while their numbers aren’t where its wants them to be, it is hard to address the challenges if the company isn’t prepared to discuss them openly.

“All of our efforts, including going public with these numbers, are designed to help us recruit and develop the world’s most talented and diverse people,” Google wrote.

More information is available here.