The Western Australian Government has launched a five year strategy to boost STEM skills in Western Australia.
Science Minister Stephen Dawson said the Future state, future skills: Accelerating STEM skills for Western Australia would provide a targeted approach to expanding STEM through the community.
“Current research shows around 1.5 million WA workers will require some form of reskilling over the coming years and our updated strategy Future State, future skills will enable this to occur,” said Dawson.
“The updated STEM skills strategy will provide us with a targeted, evidence-based approach over the next five years to grow collaboration and impact across our STEM ecosystem.”
Future state, future skills will focus on growing the success of STEM-related initiatives at various community, industry, research, and government levels over the next five years.
The strategy has three priority action areas:
- Career pathways and industry linkages: Showcasing priority and emerging STEM opportunities and fostering industry engagement to support education and training;
- Diversity and inclusion: Attracting and retaining under-represented groups in STEM, including women and girls, people from low socio-economic areas, people from regional and remote areas, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups; and;
- STEM culture and literacy: Engaging the community to build positive attitudes towards STEM, awareness of STEM and foundational STEM literacy skills.
Future state, future skills has connections to the State Government’s economic framework Diversify WA, with all eight industry sectors supported with the provision of future STEM skills.
The mission update also aims to enhance industry involvement in the STEM education and skills pipeline, guiding from early childhood through school education to vocational education and training (VET) and university.
Since the release of the State STEM skills strategy in 2019, many Western Australians have embraced a range of STEM education and training opportunities.
Around 90 per cent of Year 12 students studied STEM subjects or STEM VET qualifications in 2023.
Enrolments in publicly-funded, post-school VET STEM courses in WA also increased by 46 per cent between 2018 and 2023, supported by fee free or low fee TAFE courses and skill sets.