Australia Aopting USA STEM Plan

Professor Ian Chubb, Australian Chief Scientist, issued a National Science, Technology, National Engineering and Mathematics Strategy Discussion Paper, 21 June 2013. The wording of the paper sounded familiar to me, but I could find no sources cited in the paper. A web search using words from the paper identified the Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education 5-Year Strategic Plan, from the US National Science and Technology Council, May 2013. Adopting existing plan from the USA is a valid strategy for Australia, but if that is the intention, it would be best this was made clear.

I suggest that the priority should be placed on how to implement such strategies. In 1998 I was part of an Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering exercise to prepare a strategy for the development of research in information technology (IT) in Australia over 10-15 years. That strategy lead, in part, to an investment of around $1B in NICTA. But preparing the strategy was the easy bit. ;-)