Australia struggling to produce engineers

Post by David DeMeo

           An article posted by an Australian news paper discussed the falling numbers of students who are in science and math courses. This is looking to decrease the already low numbers of engineers produced in Australia. The statistics of high school students taking advanced math classes is falling. "The number of boys studying advanced math at senior high school dropped from 15.9% in 2001 to 11.5% in 2015 while girls studying intermediate math dropped from 30.9% to 20.6%." Prior to this fall, the gender gap in engineering was the main problem and while this is still a large issue, the number of total students in engineering will have to be the focus for Australia. One way they have been dealing with this issue is by bringing in engineers from overseas, but this is not a permanent fix, and without sufficient numbers of engineers in Australia the country will not be advancing as quickly as they plan to. The need for the country to have greater numbers of students in engineering is very important.
     
           As an engineering student, I know that it is not an easy career to take on and if the students interest in math is not there then engineering is definitely not the choice. A possible fix from my point of view is not to attack the idea of engineering and force that on the students, but get the interest in math and science up. Letting the students participate in more fun and interesting projects will show them it is more than just useless numbers on a test.
       
          Using this article, as a current engineering student, I might begin to look for jobs and internships in Australia knowing that there is a demand.

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