Inaugural STEM Awards for Wollondilly schools
Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor is presenting inaugural STEM awards to Picton High School and Wollondilly Anglican College.
Mr Taylor said each school would this week (week beginning Monday 7 December) be nominating one student who had excelled in a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) related discipline. The awards will be presented at school presentation evenings before end of term.
Transcript: “This is a really exciting thing to be involved with because we want to make sure that people understand how important it is that kids learn about mathematics, that they learn about science and technology and that these sorts of jobs we need to be able to fill in the future, we can fill with young kids who are excited about those areas.”
Mr Taylor said a number of Hume schools had embraced the idea of a perpetual trophy, to be passed on to a worthy recipient at the end of each school year.
“STEM subjects are where the jobs of the future are – that’s why we’re so strongly focused on them. At the moment, we’re struggling to find enough teachers for Maths for instance, we’re struggling to find enough people with Science and Maths backgrounds to get involved in the technology sector and many other sectors that really need those skills.
“Even in sectors like agriculture now, more and more of what producers are doing is software enabled, it’s using quite complicated hardware. Same with cars. They almost have computer systems inside the car, so if you want to look after a car, if you’re a mechanic, you have to be across that.
“These skills are becoming more and more important in very practical ways and that’s why I want to encourage our students and our teachers in these areas to be excited about what they’re doing and to recognise the enormous potential of STEM.”
