Chief Scientist Eyes STEM Data from 2016 Census

Australia’s Office of the Chief Scientist has created a benchmark that can be used to highlight the impact of STEM policy reforms between 2011 and 2016.

Chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel AO today unveiled Australia’s STEM workforce, a 223-page report that uses 2011 Census data to analyse the make-up of Australia’s “STEM-qualified population”.

With the next national Census due to occur in August 2016, Dr Finkel indicated he wanted to have a baseline against which he could visualise the impact of current STEM initiatives and policy reforms.

“We know that STEM will be critical; and yet we know very little about who possesses these skills in Australia, where they work or how their careers progress from graduation,” he said in the report.

The Government is presently pushing strongly to increase science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) capability among Australian workers.

It is primarily doing this through its $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda – from which several STEM skills projects have already received funding.

The impact of the renewed focus on STEM skills could be revealed in the 2016 Census data, which is expected to be publicly released sometime in late 2018.

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