Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone who has come before the committee this morning and made the trip. It is a lovely sunny morning here. It is great to have their input into why and how we promote STEM subjects. My background is that I worked in Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, for a while so was involved a bit with the discover science programmes. At that time, SFI was doing research into why more girls were not taking up STEM subjects and asking what the reason was and if there was something that was not being thought about. It conducted a survey and did research into this. One of the points I took away from the report and what it came back to for me, was that the key thing for young girls was a role model. This could be someone they knew, whether it was their mum, an aunt, an older sister, or someone in either their family or friend circle who they could point to as someone who had done this. It could be someone who had gone on to study physics, become a chemist, work in the labs in a hospital or otherwise use it in her day-to-day job.

STEM subjects can be used in so many different ways. If I asked each one of the witnesses to list their careers, we would be here for a while. You could think of everything and anything and also things you would never even think of. I might do that at the end of the meeting if we have time. I might ask each of the witnesses to think of two careers they would never associate with STEM subjects or give me their ideas on that. The role model importance knocked me for six a little bit. We talk about all of these things such as investment which is crucial and bringing down class sizes and how it is always more expensive, especially at third level, in science and engineering because of all the equipment costs and the lab space. If someone is doing history or French in college, which is what I did, a huge amount of equipment is not needed to be able to do their research or study. We look at all of these things that we need to put in place, especially with a rising population, but I am also thinking about that one point; that it is the role model within the family circle that is important. How do we break into that and make an impact on young women? They are not looking to someone on "Dancing with the Stars" or a real celebrity. They are looking to someone they know who comes from the same place as them who has done something in this area. They can then see themselves in that position. That it is what I look to, particularly because I come from a more regional area. We have some excellent schools. I know schools were mentioned here. We actually got an opportunity with the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, to visit some of the schools in Roscommon town. We went to the Convent of Mercy Roscommon and they have a design lab. I was looking it up here again. This is one of the girls' schools in Roscommon - I acknowledge many more schools are co-educational now - but that school actually have a design lab and all the girls in there were learning things like woodwork and on the computer-aided design, CAD, tech side of things. It was really impressive. I had not known about it. I remember thinking that our schools, particularly our secondary schools, are really doing much to equip our students for the future. Those are just a few thoughts I had.

My question to the witnesses is around that role model aspect. Do they have any ideas around this? I understand the elements around investment and all of this but is there anything around role models, particularly, say, at national school, secondary school and maybe at third level? I direct that question to the representatives from the INTO, and to those in the secondary level space, as well as to Ms O’Reilly in term of third level and in our colleges. I point to another aspect related to our engineering courses. I worked in the research office in the University of Galway. In the science and engineering space, departments look to make sure their PhD teams and the teams working with principal investigators are balanced. Sometimes they take a lot of students from abroad, maybe because there are not as many students doing those subjects here locally in Ireland. The challenge we have is bringing that excellence and cultivating it indigenously as well. We have obviously great talent that comes from abroad as well. Those are a couple of thoughts. I thank the witnesses for their submissions. For the first of my actual questions, I ask the witnesses if anything comes to mind about the two career choices people would never think of for someone doing a STEM course - either in physics, biology, chemistry, or engineering. Second, what other elements could we do around that role model space to support teachers, parents, or parents' associations? I mention bringing students into third level institutions to visit our labs funded by the SFI and the Irish Research Council, IRC. I know an awful lot of the students go out to schools. Is there something else the witnesses think we could be doing in that particular space? I invite whoever would like to comment to please do so.