Comments on: Coalition’s $31.2m commitment to women’s STEM careers wins praise https://www.campusreview.com.au/2016/07/coalitions-31-2m-commitment-to-womens-stem-careers-wins-praise/ The latest in higher education news Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:06:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Rupinder K Kanwar https://www.campusreview.com.au/2016/07/coalitions-31-2m-commitment-to-womens-stem-careers-wins-praise/#comment-65002 Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:06:39 +0000 https://www.campusreview.com.au/?p=74423#comment-65002 Agree with Jude.

Also we definitely need to look for the reasons why women leave careers in STEM after some time? Why is there dead end for women in STEM related careers in Universities and other organisations?

If the young women from school (level) see more examples of successful STEM careers for women in community, they will automatically select STEM.

]]> By: Jude Alexander https://www.campusreview.com.au/2016/07/coalitions-31-2m-commitment-to-womens-stem-careers-wins-praise/#comment-64997 Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:12:34 +0000 https://www.campusreview.com.au/?p=74423#comment-64997 Are they doing anything to address the sexism in STEM businesses? Adivsing STEM businesses that a whole bunch of graduates are coming that don’t look like their current employees? Organisational change management is difficult and costly. Withouth it, however, we will probably keep losing talented, qualified young women to other fields. Currently, the attrition rate is 50%.
We mostly don’t even know which businesses are STEM. Is finance? Medicine? Agriculture? Do we know which STEM roles people are likely to do? Because many of them are physical, remote and require twelve-hour shifts. Part of the training we do for some STEM roles should be physical – including stamina and weight-based training, especially where there is likely to be a manual labour component, as in agriculture, heavy industry and truck or forklift driving.
There is also a social milieu, which university training does not prepare graduates for. Do you know how to talk to someone who got out of prison yesterday? Has it occurred to you that you might need to, if you’re studying geology or engineering? If you’re gaily encouraging your daughters into STEM, have you considered that they will need these skills? And that learning them may change the way they speak and act?
What about a woman who works on a minesite as a cleaner or caterer, who has no STEM qualification at all? The great bulk of STEM roles are not for university graduates. If we really are serious about increasing STEM workforce participation, especially for women and people form CALD backgrounds, we should look at the actual jobs people actually do, and consider the training they will really need, which may be in TAFEs or on short courses. STEM is often a working class world. We should consider the possibilities, not just for those lucky enough to get into university, but for all people considering STEM as a career. It may be that these opportunities are good for women who come from families who already work in STEM fields, because the social load is lighter. However, customising the education process so that it fits more women from these backgrounds would be very difficult in prestigious educational institutions.
I believe we need to take a deeper dive into what STEM actually is, who works there, where the opportunities are, and which industries are more likely to support long careers, before we blindly shovel more women into the big end of the pipeline.

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