Boom in the hard sciences

ENGINEERING and science have experienced a growth surge while overall university applications are down.

ENGINEERING and science have experienced a growth surge while overall university applications are down as young people flock to the overheated labour market.

Applications for university entrance are down an average of more than 2 per cent across the country. The softening demand for university education is most apparent in Victoria (down 3.1 per cent) and Western Australia (down 2.7 per cent). In South Australia applications are down 2.1 per cent and Queensland experienced a 1 per cent drop for 2008 start-of-year applications. But NSW applications were up 1.7per cent.

Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake told the HES that the ability of 18-year-old school leavers to walk into jobs driving graders that pay up to $130,000 in Queensland and Western Australia "is really dampening demand".

However, the declines contrast with strong demand for the national priority areas of engineering, science and related technologies, in a development welcomed by university leaders.

Applications for engineering and the natural and physical sciences, including maths, physics and chemistry, are up 16.2 per cent in Queensland on the same time last year.

University of Queensland head of engineering Graham Schaffer said that based on offers, UQ engineering expected a 10 per cent increase in enrolments this year, nearly doubling its entire cohort over the past five years. He said the five-year resources boom meant that demand for engineering graduates across Queensland "is at an all-time high".

"We are beneficaries of the boom. Demand for our graduates certainly exceeds supply and we expect full employment for them when they graduate in four years' time," Professor Schaffer said.

In another resource boom state, the University of Western Australia said it expected to fill all 145 additional undergraduate places in engineering and science allocated last year by former Coalition education minister Julie Bishop. UWA admissions chief Wayne Betts told the HES it was likely the amount of publicity generated by lucrative careers in the resource industry had "created a feedback loop" into student course choices.

Similarly, South Australian universities also appear to be benefiting from the boom, after making more offers for engineering and related technologies this year than last year. Even so, 400 students for whom the discipline was first preference missed out. The University of Adelaide reported it had made a record 5280 offers this year, with first-preference applications for engineering programs up 8.7 per cent.

Greg Hancock, dean of engineering and information technology at the University of Sydney, said interest had increased by 5 to 10 per cent this year. "The things that are going on in this part of the world are not necessarily directly linked to the resources boom but to the highly performing economy," Professor Hancock said.

"They are hi-tech things."

QUT science dean Margaret Britz told the HES all extra places in the sciences, especially medical sciences such as radiotherapy, were expected to be filled.

However, Professor Britz said although the statistics appeared to show a welcome embrace of the hard sciences by a new generation, she was concerned they masked a continuing and alarming decline in the general sciences.

University of New England's director of planning and institutional research John Kleeman said natural sciences had surged in 2008, up 11 per cent on 2007. "We have been working very hard with school leavers to increase their interest. I think there is a greater understanding of the underlying importance of science to Australia's future," DrKleeman said.

Universities Australia chief executive Glenn Withers said the fluctuating demand had highlighted the need for a new planning system to adequately anticipate changing professional, technical and skilled labour needs. "This is simply lacking at present," he said.