Shaping an Indigenous future in engineering

Almost two years ago a group of like-minded Australians got together to discuss why there were so few Indigenous Australians in the field of engineering.

The first National Indigenous Engineering Summit brought together the engineering industry, professional bodies, educational providers and policy leaders to exchange ideas and develop strategies to create and support pathways into the engineering profession for Indigenous Australians.

A headcount showed there are practising Indigenous engineers in Australia, but in low numbers.

Summit organisers gave an undertaking to identify the key obstacles to Indigenous Australians joining the profession and to formulate a strategy for achieving demographic parity by 2030.

Stakeholders have been aware of the reasons for low levels of interest in the field, and while this is not confined to Indigenous students, it is reflective of a general societal ignorance of what engineers actually do. Arguably this situation also needs attention.

One way to focus on change was through The Partners for Pathways, a nationwide initiative being led by the University of Melbourne through a Commonwealth grant of $700,000.

The project aims to create scholarships and devise strategies to promote pathways into engineering and remove barriers to entry for Indigenous and other students who do not have the STEM pre-requisites.

University of Melbourne alumnus and former Sinclair Knight Merz CEO Paul Dougas leads The Partners for Pathways program, aiming to vastly improve opportunities for Indigenous engineering students and increase the number of Indigenous engineers working in Australia.

“Indigenous engineers are part of the conversation and providing input about the building of the pathways. They are engineers and have gone through the journey into engineering,” Professor Dougas says.

“These engineers can now be mentors to current students coming through the ranks and are able to provide advice on what barriers and experiences they had to help build a tangible pipeline into the profession.

“The Indigenous community has until now been underrepresented in the engineering profession, a situation that has had major negative consequences.”

Most of the major Australian university engineering schools were represented at the summit.

The stakeholders examined the blockages preventing Indigenous students from pursuing studies in engineering, with a view to devising ways of working around these barriers.

One of the key barriers was a lack of take-up of maths and science subjects among Indigenous school students. There are low levels of attainment in maths by the end of Year 12. Studying engineering at university without good results in advanced maths at secondary school is not ideal, and is arguably a set up for failure.

Ian Anderson, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Engagement), says the University of Melbourne has a commitment to population parity as a key feature of the 2015 Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

“Building on that commitment and taking greater steps towards setting hard targets to achieve population parity, the University will look towards the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students,” Professor Anderson says.

“This will certainly assist with young Aboriginal children seeing real life role models of Indigenous engineers and how that it is possible.

“The Summit was a life-changing event involving industry, not for profits, and education providers providing recommendations to help steer this pathway.

“We have a consultative approach that places current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engineers at the centre of this strategy.”

Understanding the high level of connectedness between the First Australians and the land itself is perhaps a key to better representation in engineering pathways.

The impact of decisions made by engineers in both the design and specification processes is profound and often irreversible, especially when these decisions become contractual requirements.

The collective Indigenous cultural ignorance of non-Indigenous engineers needs consideration. But Indigenous engineers can have a real influence over what is being planned and is a worthwhile aspiration.

There are many projects, especially in the resources sector in remote locations that are of significant cultural importance to the traditional owners. These projects often hold real, local employment opportunities for traditional owners but such roles are usually taken by FIFO (Fly-in Fly-out) staff at the higher technical levels.

Several major resource companies are showing the way in providing employment opportunities to locals, especially at lower skill and knowledge levels, with some outstanding examples of Indigenous engineers in key roles.

Until recently, there was little or no consideration of the environmental impact of what we were designing and specifying in terms of engineering the land.

Environmental awareness arose and changed that forever and no engineer now does anything without a comprehensive evaluation of environmental impact and any remediation required.

Perhaps in a decade or two, the community will benefit from having a similarly deeper understanding of, and commitment to, the impact of our actions on our First Australians and our shared land.

For that to happen we need to get more Indigenous students into engineering studies.