Since being elected to the Australian parliament in 2010, the Hon Karen Andrews has been an advocate for the engineering and scientific communities as well as the importance of teaching STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) in schools.
"Engineers who undertake a mentoring role can help students develop important skills in STEM that can lead into a career in engineering," says Karen Andrews who is now Federal Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Training.
This subject will be on of the points she discusses in her keynote speech to the Australian Engineering Conference, which will be held in Brisbane on November 23-25.
Another key issue will be the pathway from vocational education through to higher education.
"Getting people who have hands on experience in engineering through trade qualifications and then fostering them into a higher education engineering qualification is a pathway we should all encourage," she says.
Interestingly, she also says there are a significant number of engineers who are degree qualified who subsequently go back and studied a trade qualification get helpful hands-on experience. She suggests this is being done to gain additional practical skills and qualifications and will make them more employable in what is, at present, a fairly tight employment market.
"Anecdotally, training organisations are seeing that there is an increasing trend for graduates to return to study certificate and diploma level qualifications," Andrews says.
"The questions that engineers need to answer, and particularly those who are responsible for training engineers, is whether or not there needs to be a much larger practical component to the engineering qualification to ensure that engineering graduates are job ready at the point of graduation."
Andrews says engineers have an enormous opportunity to contribute to Australia’s economic development.
"As all engineers would know their work is innovative on a daily basis. All engineers are required to apply innovative principles to their day-today work, in design, in maintenance and in looking for solutions; this is core business to engineers," she says.
"The future for us in Australia is about innovation and we need to make sure that we are being creative, and developing new ideas and new opportunities. The skills of engineers and the engineering profession in this are critical."
To learn more, secure your spot at the Australian Engineering Conference where Federal Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Training, Karen Andrews will talk about pathways to becoming an engineer and the role the engineering community must play in Australia's economic development.