The Australian Academy of Science welcomes the Optimising STEM Industry-School Partnerships: Inspiring Australia’s Next Generation Final Report and is calling on Federal and State governments to work together to advance the report's 10 recommendations.
The Academy’s Education Committee Chair, Professor Ian Chubb FAA, said the Academy strongly supports the push for industry to play a greater and more constructive role in enhancing STEM in Australia’s education system.
“We are pleased to see a number of the Academy’s recommendations from its submission reflected in the final report,” Professor Chubb said.
The Academy strongly backs the report’s emphasis on the importance of STEM education to help solve real-world problems, and the development of initiatives at scale.
The Academy particularly welcomes the report’s recommendations to ‘review senior secondary system and university prerequisites (2)’ and ‘develop minimal national requirements for discipline specific professional learning to maintain ongoing teacher registration (3)’.
“The Academy has been advocating for some time for the staged reintroduction of at least Year 12 mathematics subjects as prerequisites for all bachelors programs in science, engineering and commerce,” Professor Chubb said.
The Academy’s Secretary for Education and Public Awareness, Professor Pauline Ladiges FAA, said the Academy’s long-standing experience in developing and delivering science and mathematics education programs supports the report’s focus on in-service and pre-service teacher professional learning.
“The Australian Academy of Science supports all efforts to collect data that help improve teaching and learning and that guide Australia’s future investment in STEM,” Professor Ladiges said.
Read the Academy’s full submission, including its recommendations
Academy offers three STEM education programs to primary and secondary teachers and students: Primary Connections, Science by Doing and reSolve: Mathematics by Inquiry.
Each program includes features to improve teacher quality through professional learning and improve students’ skills through a guided inquiry approach that enhances problem solving ability, science literacy and numeracy. Teachers, schools and classrooms that have implemented the programs attest to their impact, and independent program evaluations support this finding. The resources and training are widely available to schools at low or no cost to them. The programs reach hundreds of rural and remote students and teachers.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
