INVESTING in a new engineering degree might seem counter-intuitive given the gloom over long-term enrolment trends but Southern Cross University vice-chancellor Peter Lee says for his university, there is only upside.
Chennai Engineering Colleges
"The demand for engineering skills in regional and rural settings is huge: Lismore City Council has advertised for the fourth time to recruit a professional engineer,'' Professor Lee, himself a mechanical engineer, said.
Engineering Graduation
"We know that many students across our footprint leave our area to study engineering in Sydney or Brisbane and only about 25 per cent of those qualified engineers ever return to work in any region, let alone our region.
"In one way we are exporting talented people to the city. That means infrastructure in regional settings is declining and can't be rebuilt because we don't have the skill base to do it.'' By comparison, 70 per cent of SCU graduates find jobs in regional or rural Australia, he said.
SCU announced its new civil engineering degree yesterday, as it hosted the Northern Rivers Science and Engineering Challenge for 450 students from 16 high schools at its Lismore campus.
The course has been in planing stages for 18 months and Professor Lee is confident there will be about 50 takers when it commences in the new year.
"We are starting with civil to provide engineers capable of dealing with issues in regional towns and rural settings. We aren't interested in producing engineers who can design two kilometre long bridges or 100-storey buildings.''
Instead, in addition to core subjects, they will be trained to grapple with problems relevant to the area: its roads, bridges, water and waste water treatment and climate adaptation challenges for coastal and bush settings, such as changing rainfall patterns.
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