State govt launches STEM strategy

The state government has introduced a science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills strategy, which aims to have 85 per cent of year 12 students completing two or more STEM courses.

'Future Jobs, Future Skills: Driving STEM skills in Western Australia' has been welcomed across a variety of sectors, and the state government says it is Western Australia’s first STEM skills strategy.

The state government said a core objective of the STEM strategy was to address the current lack of diversity in STEM education and related careers.

“Women represent just 16 per cent of STEM-qualified people in Australia, and Aboriginal people represent less than 1 per cent of higher education engineering and science students,” the government said

The strategy was an election commitment by the McGowan government, and was developed by a panel chaired by WA chief scientist Peter Klinken.

The government said it had already committed more than $3.3 million to kick-start the delivery of this strategy, including a four-year professional learning program for more than 1,000 teachers in lower socioeconomic public schools, which is already under way.

Science Minister Dave Kelly said one of the priorities for this government was to ensure all Western Australians had the opportunity to develop STEM skills and participate in the jobs of the future.

"Seventy-five per cent of the fastest growing jobs require STEM skills and STEM jobs are growing at one and a half times the rate of non-STEM jobs,” he said.

"By 2030, workers are expected to spend double the amount of time solving problems, 41 per cent more time on critical thinking and judgement and 77 per cent more time using science and mathematics skills.”

Scitech said it welcomed the strategy, and said it strongly aligned with its own ‘New Scitech’ strategy.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of WA said the future skills STEM strategy would help ensure WA’s future workforce remained at the cutting edge in a globally competitive market.

Rio Tinto also backed the delivery of the STEM skill strategy, which was officially launched at the company’s operations centre in Perth.