Businesses and academics disagree on how to close the STEM gap

According to the findings, 60% of employers and 80% of universities surveyed believe there aren't enough skilled candidates leaving education to meet industry's needs. The findings reinforce previous studies and the widely held belief that too few school students are being encouraged – either by their schools or by their negative perceptions of remuneration and opportunities – to pursue STEM subjects at university. We've known for some time about the gap and the efforts of various governments and organisations have, in general, failed to turn the tide. At an industry event earlier this year, an academic quoted some telling statistics. If you assume that engineering sector vacancies will grow at 2.4% a year and factor in the number of engineers retiring, universities need to double the number of graduates. That's not going to happen overnight, something employers and academics recognise and believe will take a decade to overcome. While employers and academics agree there's a problem, they disagree about the solution. Employers think they should have a bigger say in the STEM curriculum; 54% of academics disagree. More than 60% of businesses want to see more project based learning; only 34% of academics agree. And more than half of employers believe students won't reach their potential without project based learning. A number of reasons for the decline in engineering undergraduates have been put forward over the years, including 'engineering is too hard', 'it doesn't pay well' and 'there aren't any prospects'. Employers and academics arguing about the curriculum is part of the solution, but the decline will not be reversed until school students see good reasons to want to become engineers. As New Electronics said in its 8 October issue, there is a lot of young talent out there – male and female alike – and we as an industry are doing little to spark the initial interest and then nurture it.