Only better paid teachers can address shortfall of future engineers, warns BAE Systems officer
Military giant BAE says teachers must be paid more to address a shortfall of engineers that has hit crisis levels.
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We need to stop paying teachers a “pittance” if we’re going to have any chance of addressing the nation’s engineering skills shortfall, which is already at crisis level, BAE Systems Australia chief technology officer Brad Yelland says.
Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia defence breakfast in Adelaide yesterday, Mr Yelland said South Australia’s supply of engineers was already virtually tapped out before the major shipbuilding programs even start.
Mr Yelland said while there were some “fantastic” programs at the state level designed to skill people up for the $89 billion shipbuilding program, “we need to do more and we need to keep focusing on this’’.
The answer was to make maths and science enjoyable, demonstrate what careers they led to, and importantly stop paying teachers badly, Mr Yelland said.
“We pay our teachers a pittance. How can we expect to get really dedicated teachers who will put the extra effort they need to into finding out these things, how can we expect that when we pay them so little?
“We need to do more to help the teachers, we need to do more to help the schools, we need to … make sure the curriculum in schools is exciting in maths and science … because if you don’t have kids wanting to do maths and science you’re not going to get kids into engineering courses.’’
Engineers Australia national public affairs manager Jonathan Russell told The Advertiser that across the nation, university commencements in engineering were at the lowest level in a decade. But on the upside, those who chose the engineering path would have job security “for a couple of generations’’, he said.
Mr Yelland told the CEDA breakfast that right now “there are virtually no engineers left in Adelaide’’.
“BAE right now has a requirement for 200 more engineers and 80 per cent of those are for roles that are based in Adelaide’’ he said.
“We just can’t get them so we’re going to have to look at alternative ways to get them.’’
Mr Yelland said over the longer term “a lot more” needed to be done.
“Our education, training and academic system is failing to deliver the workforce that we need. It’s a national issue that we’ve got to address. Education standards are low,’’ he said. Mr Yelland referenced the 2018 PISA results released this week, which showed the nation’s 15-year-olds were performing at a significantly lower standard in reading, maths and science than a decade ago.