Roads Australia
The Australian Road Forum has welcomed the Federal Government’s decision to fund an additional 560 university placements for engineering students.
Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop, announced last week that the Government was providing new engineering places as part of the Skills for the Future package and other places as part of the Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future package.
The majority of these places will commence in 2008, the minister said.
ARF president, Ray Fisher, said the Government’s announcement was a welcome step in the right direction.
“While the road industry is not alone in feeling the impact of the critical shortage of engineers, we have a particular concern given the level of construction activity on the horizon,” Mr Fisher said.
“This shortage threatens to railroad the ambitious road construction program that is planned by Federal and state governments over the coming decade.”
Mr Fisher said having adequate numbers of university places was only part of the solution.
“The ongoing challenge is to attract young people into the profession,” he said.
“To that end, ARF would like to see a greater focus on maths and science subjects in the school curriculum to create a platform that attracts young people to engineering.”
Submitted by Mark Bowmer on Wednesday September 19th 2007 2:27pm