Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to speak on today's MPI. Jobs certainly are a key focus of this government. It is an issue that has certainly been at the front of my mind as I have done work, particularly in recent months, in the area of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths. Everyone that I have spoken to has certainly acknowledged that a lot more needs to be done to improve the STEM skills of our nation. We must turn our minds to some practical and some real solutions to what is a very complex problem.

While the solutions appear to lie primarily with education, it is industry that wears the outcomes of education. I think that there are some things we need to do before we race headlong into coming up with some purported solutions to this. We need to understand the problem. And, as I have already said, it is a complex problem. Let me start by talking about the jobs of the future.

Anyone who says that they can predict what the jobs of the future are going to be are actually kidding themselves. But there are some key indicators of what the skills will be for the jobs of the future. Those skills include the ability to analyse data. We are amassing enormous amounts of data. We will need people in the future who understand how to analyse data. We will need people with strong statistical analysis skills. We will also need people who have skills in the area of computer coding.

If we further start to define the problem, we know that the issues are faced by those in years 5 to 8. Our target age group are the 10-year-olds to the 14-year-olds. There is, however, a strong argument that we should be engaging much earlier. There has already been reference to programs that are being run in kindergartens overseas. Germany is certainly an example of where science is being introduced into kindergartens. Those programs are already being rolled out in Australia. In Sydney alone, there are over 40 centres that are currently introducing science into kindergarten.

But we know there is an issue we need to address—that is, the impact of the influencers of our students. We need to impact on the teachers. We need to make sure that we have good quality teachers with strong science and maths skills themselves, and with the confidence to go out there and work with the students and engage with them. We need to ensure that they are making science and maths, in particular, fun and interesting. We know that we have to engage with the parents because parents are key influencers of their children. We need to make sure that parents are engaged in building STEM futures for their children.

We need to look at career advisers and engage with them so that they understand that the jobs of the future exist out there in the science, technology, engineering and maths areas. Of course, the fourth component is to make sure that we are engaging with the principals. There seems to be this incredible and almighty push to actually obtain the best possible OP or ATAR score. Often that is done to the detriment of the students who potentially could engage and undertake work in science, engineering, maths and technology at schools. So we have to influence the principals to make sure they are guiding their teachers, career advisers and students appropriately for what the jobs of the future are going to be.

The problem is certainly complex, and there is not just one magical fix for this. There is not just one solution to this. I think it is incumbent on all of us here to be aware of the complexities of the issues and to be a little bit conscious of making sure that this is an issue that we should not dismiss or make light of. We should actually listen to the views that are being put in this place and have a sensible debate about the way forward.

We need to understand that it is going to take a minimum of 10 years to influence the 10-year-olds in school now; to get them through their science subjects and out into the workforce. This is a long-term process, but it is certainly one in which the work has already been started by this government. We intend to continue, and I am committed to making sure that we improve STEM skills in Australia.

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