Esteemed engineer and former President of Engineers Australia, Dr Marlene Kanga tells PWPro why the future of Australia rests on its young engineers.
Q. What made you follow a career in engineering?
My father was an engineer and I was inspired by what he achieved as one of India’s first engineers. He had a great sense of purpose in serving the community. I understood at a very early age that engineers make a difference in everyone’s lives – from providing the most basic necessities like clean water to the most advanced technologies that enable
space exploration.
Engineers in IPWEA are making a great contribution to their communities – providing essential services like water, sewerage services, roads and other infrastructure. We would not be able to function as a modern economy without these facilities, yet they are taken for granted.
Q. What is it about the profession that makes it a great career for young people, particularly women?
Young people, especially in Australia, need to understand the importance of being active contributors to our increasingly technological world. This technology is driven by science and engineering.
There is no particular barrier for those considering a career in engineering. Anyone can be an engineer and make a great contribution to society.
Engineers change the world. As an engineer you can really make a difference.
Q. Do you agree with Dame Prof. Ann Dowling’s recent comment piece on the BBC News website that young people should be encouraged to become engineers?
I agree that all children are natural engineers. Somewhere during their school years, they tend to lose their fascination with the natural world and how it could be changed – that takes engineering.
We need to encourage all young people to study science and engineering. The future of Australia depends on it, especially if we want to remain an advanced economy.
Also, many of the problems the world faces today including climate change, depletion of natural resources, water and energy, urban development – all need engineers to develop innovative solutions. Yet we are facing a global shortage of engineers.
Q. Dame Dowling said that the UK will need at least 1.82 million new engineering, science and technology professionals by 2022. Does Australia have a similar skills shortage problem?
Unfortunately the statistics for science and engineering, especially for girls, are very similar in Australia compared to the UK.
Science and mathematics are key enabling subjects that need to become highly regarded by students and teachers. Yet the numbers studying these subjects is declining rapidly. I am appalled that many students complete school without studying mathematics in their final years.
Q. What do you think needs to be done to encourage more young people, particularly women, into engineering?
I would like to bust the myth that engineering is a male dominated profession. This is the case in countries where engineering first established as a profession – mainly the western countries. The proportion of women engineers in these countries continues to be below 20 per cent.
However, in Asia and the Middle East the numbers are approaching 50 per cent female engineers. For example, more than 50 per cent of engineering students graduating from the University of Kuwait are women. Nearly 30 per cent of registered engineers in Malaysia are women.
By comparison, only 16 per cent of engineering students in Australia are women (national average) and only 7 per cent of engineers are women. Of these an even smaller proportion are chartered engineers. The situation is similar in New Zealand.
However, I am pleased that in some engineering disciplines like environmental engineering, chemical engineering and bio-medical engineering, women tend to make up a growing proportion of students. I hope this will mean more women engineers in the workforce.
Q. What has already been done to address the skills shortage in Australia?
Engineers Australia has a number of outreach programmes for students in primary and secondary school and there are other programmes such as Reengineering Australia, Robogals and Power of Engineering that have developed attractive programmes to show that engineering is an exciting career. There are similar programmes in New Zealand. The Institution of Engineers New Zealand has a specific strategy to encourage women into the profession.
However, it’s not just a matter of attracting women to the profession. It’s also important to retain women, especially through the critical years when career formation and family responsibilities coincide. That is when we lose many women to other professions that permit greater flexibility and more family friendly workplaces. Australia and New Zealand have a long way to go. •••
Career facts
Dr Marlene Kanga AM is one of Australia’s leading engineers. She is Acting Chair of the Board of Innovation Australia and Chair of the R&D Incentives Committee, Department of Industry and Science, the largest support program for innovation in industry in Australia. She is also a member of the Board of Sydney Water Corporation, the largest water utility in Australia and Director of iOmniscient, which has developed patented software technology for intelligent video analytics systems. Dr Kanga was National President of Engineers Australia in 2013.