Advice for education and training providers

Key considerations

Key considerations to support women’s participation and equity in manufacturing education and training include:

• Incentives for women to access education and training opportunities - consider ways to remove financial barriers that prevent women from participating, such as low wages for apprentices and up-front costs of purchasing tools, particularly for mature-aged apprentices.
• Training environments that support the needs of a diverse range of women - for example, programs that are designed with people with caring responsibilities in mind to encourage more women to take part.
• Opportunities for women to reskill, upskill and transition into the industry - help women with transferrable skills from different industries to enter manufacturing.
• Present manufacturing subjects in an appealing way - rethink how manufacturing subjects are presented in schools to make them more appealing, promoting the industry as a place that offers safe and interesting opportunities for women to thrive.
• Safe spaces for girls and women to try non-traditional subjects - because of deeply held gender stereotypes, girls and young women often don’t have the same casual exposure to trades and hands-on skills as boys when growing up. This makes a safe learning and working environment critical for girls and women.

Spotlight on Victorian Government action

Tech Schools

Victoria’s 10 Tech Schools are high-tech STEM centres of excellence. They run free, hands-on and immersive STEM learning programs for local secondary school students.

Students stay enrolled in their local school and go to Tech Schools for one-day or multi-day programs.

Tech Schools work with schools and industry to introduce students to education and career pathways in STEM. They focus on key industry growth areas, including advanced manufacturing.

Tech Schools give girls a safe space to explore STEM subjects and learn about manufacturing.

Case studies