Defence pathways a reality for school students

A new program to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in schools, will roll out across the state to encourage students to pursue a future career in the defence sector.

The Schools Pathways Program (SPP) is a joint Federal and State Government initiative following the release of Australian Government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.

The $5 million program also includes Western Australia, with SA and WA set to have central roles in delivering major defence projects over the coming decades.

As part of the program, students will gain defence industry experience through projects, industry visits, presentations and challenges. Students will also have the opportunity to connect with mentors and networks of highly skilled defence industry professionals.

Mitcham Girls High School is one of 20 South Australian schools benefiting from the initiative. From next year, it will offer a Flexible Industry Program (FIP) in Electrotechnology with a focus on defence industries, energy, and renewables. It will be the first of its kind in South Australia, offering an all-girls program.

The SPP a key initiative of the joint Commonwealth-South Australia Defence Industry Workforce and Skills Report, launched on 10 November 2023.

The integrated workforce plan will generate a pipeline of STEM graduates and trade apprentices, increase participation of under-represented cohorts, increase awareness of defence industry careers, support mid-career transitions, and deliver a new Skills and Training Academy at Osborne.

The investment in these initiatives is more than $58 million over three years from the Commonwealth and the South Australian Government.

This is in addition to the Malinauskas Labor Government’s $208 million investment in five new technical colleges and the Commonwealth’s commitment to invest $128.5 million to fund 4,000 extra university places nationally in engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and physics to meet the needs of the AUKUS submarine program. 1,030 of these have been allocated to South Australian Universities.

Quotes

Attributable to Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy

The Schools Pathways Program provides practical career awareness activities for secondary school students and creates links between schools and defence industry.

Our critical national defence projects, including conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines, are delivered by a highly educated, highly trained workforce with cutting-edge skills and capabilities.

The SPP is an instrumental mechanism in Defence’s strategic approach to ensuring a highly skilled workforce pipeline to support future defence industry needs.

The Albanese Government is working to increase the uptake and completion of STEM studies in schools, to ensure we are building a skilled workforce now that can tackle the issues of tomorrow.

Attributable to the South Australian Minister for Education, Training and Skills Blair Boyer

We have a big job ahead of us to significantly increase our skilled workforce to meet the demands of our emerging defence industry and other areas of growth in our state.

The Schools Pathway program will support our young people by providing an understanding of the defence industry and the various careers available to them as part of the sector.

We want students and apprentices to know they can start their journey to a career in defence while still at school, getting qualifications that will get them a job when they finish their SACE.

Attributable to Mitcham Girls High School Principal Rosie Heinicke

Mitcham Girls High School is providing enriching opportunities for young women to engage in high-quality STEM learning that is connected to industry, develops critical and creative thinking, and provides our students with real-world experiences and key female role models.

We are providing a range of opportunities to engage our students, across all year levels, in STEM experiences that excite new knowledge, skills, dispositions and capabilities that extend beyond their curricular learning opportunities and align with potential pathways.

In 2025, we are evolving the Mitcham Girls High School curriculum to create more STEM-focused subjects that extend beyond individual disciplines including an integrated STEM model across Year 7 that will provide cross-curricular learning across Maths, Science and Technology, and the commencement of Electrotech CERT II and Stage 1: Marine Biology & STEM Integrated Studies.