Page 12 - Climate Control News magazine July-August 2022

News
Early intervention key to engineering crisis
LEFT: For most young women engineering isn’t even an option.
search tells us what we can do to change that,” McMaster said.
Of the 1,400 respondents, a whopping 90 per cent of women in non-engineering fields did not consider it as a valid career option. Other barri- ers include the perception of engineering as too ‘male-dominated’, challenging or boring; and women not feeling supported to do well in STEM subjects from as early as primary school.
With the research also revealing more than 90 per cent of girls at least partially committed to a field of study before year 11, MacMaster said this is proof early intervention and education are key.
“We need to target four main groups: school- children, their parents, their teachers and ca- reers advisors. If parents aren’t aware of the breadth of opportunities in engineering, they’re less likely to make their kids aware of it,” she said.
Australian government Women in STEM Am- bassador Lisa Harvey-Smith said attracting wom- en to engineering is critical to meeting the engi- neering needs of Australia’s booming economy.
“It makes no sense to ignore 51 per cent of our population in the design and construction of our infrastructure and technologies,” she said.
“Australia needs to seize this opportunity, with efforts needed in explaining the positive outcomes of engineering better so that more women want to train as engineers, but most cru- cially in improving the culture and work prac- tices of the industry so that they want to stay.”
WITH AUSTRALIA IN the grip of its worst- ever engineering skills shortage, first-of-its- kind research by Engineers Australia reveals the reasons women aren’t entering the pro- fession and what needs to be done to address the problem.
Shock findings from the Women in Engineer- ing Report show that the biggest reason women don’t choose to study engineering is that they simply don’t know what engineering is, and what engineers do.
With the new federal government committing to both a strong women’s agenda and addressing the nation’s skills crisis, Engineers Australia chief engineer Jane MacMaster said these find- ings are a clarion call for swift political action to stem the gender imbalance and, drive a new gen- eration of women engineers.
“Women make up 48 per cent of Australia’s workforce, yet account for just 13 per cent of the nation’s working engineers. Women are miss- ing in action from the profession and this re-
Free A2L training tools for technicians
THE AUSTRALIAN REFRIGERATION
Council (ARC) has developed a set of free A2/ A2L refrigerant training resources and assess- ment materials for Registered Training Organ- isations (RTOs).
The training tools were developed in part- nership with Refrigerants Australia and select- ed TAFE colleges.
In 2018, ARC created a unit of competency for A2/A2L refrigerants, and these new resources build upon that unit of competency to assist RTO teachers in successfully teaching students about A2/A2L refrigerants, especially R32 which has seen widespread adoption.
R32 is mildly flammable and presents sig- nificant changes to the service tools, working practices, component standards and work- place safety considerations needed during the installation, repair, service and refrigerant recovery process.
ARC chief executive officer Glenn Evans en- couraged RTO teachers to incorporate the unit of competency, training resources and assessment material in their training to ensure technician safety is of highest priority.
“These training materials cover the safe handling of the gas that is rapidly becoming the most commonly used gas in split systems
LEFT: ARC CEO, Glenn Evans.
and is beginning to make an appearance in larger AC applications,” he said.
“The resources and assessment materi- als are Australian Qualifications Frame- work (AQF) accredited to provide confi- dence for both training providers and students alike.”
Topics covered include safe handling and transport, tools and equipment, environmen- tal considerations, emergency procedures and incident management, as well as first aid for A2/A2L exposure, cylinders and storage, and installation requirements.
The full set of material can be downloaded free of charge at https://www.arcltd.org.au/ media/1132/a2-a2l-resource.pdf ✺
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