The astounding gender imbalance in engineering and technology fields, and the broader problem of an engineer shortage in the Australian economy, are both profound issues that warrant urgent attention.

Only 9.6% of engineers in Australia are women,[1] and the rate of women in engineering degree courses has remained around 14% since the 1990s.  This is against the backdrop of an ever-increasing shortage of qualified engineers, with Engineers Australia estimating that 70,000 engineers will have retired in the five years leading to 2011, with just 45,000 graduates to take their places. As recently as December 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard noted, “skills shortages in the engineering profession are of serious concern, holding back investment and productivity growth.” [2]

A comprehensive review of engineering education coordinated by the Australian Council of Engineering Deans in 2008 included as two of its six key recommendations to improve public understanding of engineering, particularly in schools, and to attract more women into the field.[3] Report author Emeritus Professor Robin King said that underpinning the current engineer shortage, “the underrepresentation of women in engineering is something which has continually concerned us. We thought we’d taken measures in the 90s to improve the situation and undoubtedly we have, but the incremental growth in the participation of women has plateaued or may be slightly negative.”[4]

This problem starts at school with “fewer than 12% of year 12 students studying advanced maths, and 66 per cent not studying either advanced or intermediate maths”. Take-up rates for physics and chemistry study are similar. [5]

‘Engineering’ is rarely articulated for school students and for many, especially young women, is not part of their vocabulary, let alone considered as a career option.[6] Part of the reason for this is that unlike many other areas of study such as maths, science or literature, engineers rarely become schoolteachers.  It is therefore important for us as engineers to present ourselves to the school students directly through outreach programmes.[7]

Robogals targets girls in grades 5-7 with fun, educational robotics workshops that aim to introduce ‘engineering’ into the girls’ vocabulary, and show that it can be fun and exciting.  Teachers have reported an increased interest in engineering among their students following visits from Robogals:

“In addition to the programming, the Robogals also discussed career pathways with the girls, and since the workshop many have discussed the possibility of studying engineering and technology with their teachers and friends. As a teacher of IT, I would strongly recommend the Robogals workshops”
- Nathaniel Bradshaw, Discipline Area Coordinator of IT, Caroline Chisholm Catholic College, May 2010

By conducting these activities in a girls-only environment, the classroom dynamic is such that the girls are able to participate fully in the robot building and programming.  As noted by one educator who runs a similar programme in the United States, “At the age ranges we offer classes to, 12 to 14 year olds, girls (more cautious and calculating) appear to employ different problem solving techniques than boys (heavy emphasis on trial and error), which creates a classroom dynamic dominated by the boys, since they enthusiastically jump at every opportunity to get their hands on something even before they know what to do with it or how it works.”[8] A similar dynamic has also been observed by Robogals in co-ed classrooms here.

Finally, Robogals has recently started to target high school girls with engineering career talks at the age when they are making choices regarding later-year school subjects and tertiary courses.  The first cohort of grade 6 girls visited by Robogals (in Melbourne in 2008) will be in year 9 this year (2011), and we intend to visit them again but this time to talk about careers in engineering and stories from successful female engineers.

By taking this systematic approach, we hope that in coming years we will begin to see more clearly the full impact of the programme.  A key focus area in 2011 is trying to better understand how we can verify and quantify this impact, and evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the programme.