Engineers Australia’s Create magazine has reported on ‘What are the factors that influence students to choose to study engineering?‘, including commentary from AMSI Director, Professor Tim Marchant.
The story reports that engineering vacancies are at a decadal high, and wages growing, with Australia’s worst ever engineering skills shortage possibly on the horizon.
The seven factors influencing students choosing engineering are highlighted as:
- Interest and early skills in maths, science and engineering principles and concepts, creativity and curiosity
- Community awareness of what engineering is and what engineers do
- Sustained exposure and context given to engineering principles in the curriculum
- Standards of maths education in Australia
- numbers of students studying maths and science
- Awareness of what engineering is and the profession’s career opportunities
- Awareness of what STEM means in practice
AMSI Director, Professor Tim Marchant, speaks on Maths in Australian education.
“The number of students taking the highest level of maths has dropped to less than 10 per cent for the first time ever,” he says. The numbers for the intermediate level don’t look good either, with a drop from 20.5 per cent nationally to 17.6 per cent.
“Without that level of maths in Year 11 and 12, students aren’t going to be able to go on to engineering degrees,” Marchant adds.
Read more on Create.
