Why increasing diversity in STEAM needs to start in schools
STEAM has a diversity problem and it’s causing us to fall behind the rest of the world. It’s time we change the stats.
When I graduated from university, I was one of only a few women who launched into a career in the heavily male-dominated industry of engineering. Thankfully, the industry has welcomed more female engineers since then, but it has a long way to go. According to Engineers Australia, 12% of Australia’s engineers are women, a figure that falls far behind other parts of the world including Europe, which sits at 35% representation, and Iran, which has more than 50% women in engineering and 70% of all science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) graduates are women. This lack of female representation is something I’m incredibly passionate about. I believe it’s time to change those statistics. An increase in diversity will boost innovation and improve our manufacturing performance, making Australia a world leader in STEAM and engineering where it belongs.
Women: the missing link
Engineering skills underpin the functioning of our societies and economies. As we face the global challenges presented by a changing climate, food and water scarcity, loss of biodiversity and globalisation, these skills will only become more important. Despite this, we are still facing a lack of gender diversity in all areas of STEAM, which I believe is the missing link in addressing these issues and creating a thriving future.
This lack of diversity plays a huge part in the engineering pipeline problem. Meanwhile, it’s been proven time and time again that diversity boosts innovation and improves financial performance. In addition to this, only a small fraction of undergraduate engineering students are women, even with the introduction of numerous outreach and engagement programs and initiatives. In vocational training, the number is less than one in ten; at universities, it’s around one in six. This enormous disparity means women are missing out on designing our future. It also means that engineering challenges, like the previously mentioned global issues that determine our future, are being tackled from a narrow set of perspectives. Without women, we are falling behind.
The solution lies in our classrooms
Fortunately, we are seeing important initiatives put in place to address this diversity issue. In 2019, the Deans of Engineering at Monash University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales created the Engineering for Australia Taskforce. The goal of the taskforce is to find ways to boost the numbers of women applying for university engineering programs. The taskforce is actively boosting female engineering enrolments to reflect the diversity of the Australian population. Universities like UNSW, for example, have set targets to increase female engineering enrolments by 30%.
The Engineering for Australia Taskforce is also addressing the low visibility of engineering in schools and society in general. As I’ve said it before, I believe we need to turn our education path on its head. We need an agile approach to education, as skilling needs to keep up with the rate of technological change. The lack of an “engineering identity” in schools is a persistent problem and one that resonates particularly strongly with me. So it’s exciting to see the taskforce tackling this issue head on.
I have visited schools and observed science classes all around the country. I have seen students carrying out sophisticated engineering projects that tackle important societal and environmental challenges without recognising that what they are doing is engineering or advanced manufacturing. They either don’t understand what engineering is, or they don’t see engineering as an attractive career. So, identifying engineering and manufacturing by name where it happens in schools, emphasising the social context and socialising female role models in manufacturing and engineering are all important steps. A great example of where this is happening is the Queensland Manufacturing Institute’s ‘Women Who Weld Program’. I can’t wait to see what the taskforce can do in tackling these important issues in our classrooms to ultimately reduce the diversity gap in STEAM.
It’s time we address this diversity issue in manufacturing and engineering and, more broadly, STEAM in Australia. Otherwise, we run the risk of falling even further behind as a nation and worse still being unequipped in a rapidly changing world. This needs to start in our education system by introducing engineering to young women and girls as something that is not only achievable but attractive to them. I will continue to be an advocate for women in STEAM and encourage the introduction of this exciting industry to young women and girls. Will you join me?