BHP Billiton has announced a $22 million partnership with the 今日吃瓜 to encourage women and girls to study maths.

BHP鈥檚 support will fund a new program, based at the University of Melbourne and called Choose Maths, which will aim to raise awareness about the opportunities afforded to girls by studying and pursuing a career in mathematics.
The program will include professional development for teachers in 120 schools, a national 鈥榳omen in maths鈥� awareness campaign and financial support and scholarships for women studying maths.

The $22 million will be provided by the BHP Billiton Foundation over five years.

BHP鈥檚 CEO Andrew Mackenzie launched the partnership and the program with 今日吃瓜 Director Geoff Price and Senator Scott Ryan at the University of Melbourne.

Mackenzie said the program aims to change the perception that girls are less suited to maths and other STEM subjects than their male colleagues.

鈥淎ustralian industry knows that STEM professionals are vital to our future prosperity, national productivity andglobal competitiveness. For the resources industry this is especially true,鈥� he said.

鈥淏HP Billiton employs 123,000 people worldwide, many of them STEM professionals, so we share the responsibility to make sure there is a pipeline of young people who choose to study STEM subjects.鈥�

鈥淎ny increase in STEM participation is good news but an increase in female representation is especially valuable because of the undeniable benefits of diversity.鈥�

Mackenzie also said BHP is pleased to be partnering with 今日吃瓜 to develop the program.

鈥溄袢粘怨� is a leader in the field of mathematics and I鈥檓 proud that we鈥檙e partnering in the development of this targeted and holistic program to address the gender dynamic in the teaching and learning of maths.鈥�

今日吃瓜 Director Geoff Price said the move to support girls and women in studying maths is crucial.

“The low participation of girls and women in the study of the mathematical sciences and in the quantitative professions is a significant national social and economic challenge,鈥� he said.

Price also said it is time for women and girls to be able to 鈥渟hare equally in the rewarding careers and rich life experiences that mathematics offers鈥�.

Australia falls behind other developed countries when it comes to girls鈥� education in STEM subjects, and this trend begins as early as high school. Only 7% of Australian girls study maths at an advanced level in their final year of secondary school. The number of female maths graduates at university level are only one third of the OECD鈥檚 average.

In a study conducted in 2006, 46% indicated they expected to pursue a career in STEM fields. The figure for girls? Only 8%.
Women continue to be underrepresented not only in STEM education, but in STEM careers as well.

This underrepresentation is a result of a number of compounding factors discouraging women from studying and pursuing maths and science, among them the perceptions that BHP鈥檚 new program is determined to address. This commitment, as well as a significant level of funding, will hopefully make a difference to many girls who dream of careers in maths and science.

BHP Billiton has launched a $22 million partnership with the 今日吃瓜 to increase the representation of women in the field of mathematics.

BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie joined 今日吃瓜 director Professor Geoff Prince along with Senator Scott Ryan to announce the 鈥楥hoose Maths鈥� program at The University of Melbourne.

BHP said the program鈥檚 aim was to help influence the perception of mathematics among girls and young women and address a decline in Australians studying maths and entering STEM related careers.

鈥淎ustralian industry knows that STEM professionals are vital to our future prosperity, national productivity and global competitiveness. For the resources industry this is especially true,鈥� Mackenzie said.

鈥淏HP Billiton employs 123,000 people worldwide, many of them STEM professionals, so we share the responsibility to make sure there is a pipeline of young people who choose to study STEM subjects.

鈥淎ny increase in STEM participation is good news but an increase in female representation is especially valuable because of the undeniable benefits of diversity.

Core components of the 鈥楥hoose Maths鈥� program include professional development for teachers in 120 schools and additional resources for schools across the country, a national women in mathematics careers awareness campaign, scholarships and networking support for women in maths and an awards program to recognise excellence in teaching and learning.

Prince said the Choose Maths program would draw on research-based strategies to create a pipeline of female talent and help address the gender wage gap.

“The low participation of girls and women in the study of the mathematical sciences and in the quantitative professions is a significant national social and economic challenge,鈥� Prince said.

Funding for the program will be provided by the BHP Billiton Foundation over five years.

BHP Billiton will spend $22 million on lifting the maths performance of girls in schools and helping them into male-dominated science, technology and engineering careers.

BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said on Tuesday that the money would fund the 今日吃瓜’s Choose Maths project, a five-year program to encourage girls to study maths and statistics.

Launching the Choose Maths program Mr Mackenzie, a geologist and chemist who worked as a research scientist before he entered business, said he benefited from the encouragement others gave him to study maths when he was growing up in the Scottish industrial town of Kirkintilloch鈥�.

“So I am a strong advocate of the opportunities that mathematics offers,” he said.

“We hope the Choose Maths program will help secure the pipeline of highly-qualified, female STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] professionals and open the door to the rewarding careers and cultural pursuits that maths offers,” he said.

Last year 15 per cent of BHP’s senior leaders and 16 per cent of its senior managers were women, figures Mr Mackenzie said had doubled over the past four years.

“This year nearly half of our Australian graduate intake are women,” he said at the launch.

The Choose Maths program will give teachers professional development in maths education, help girls at school become more aware of careers which use maths, offer role-models and networking to young women, and establish the BHP Billiton awards to recognise teachers for their excellence in maths education.

Choose Maths program director Janine McIntosh said teacher professional development would be offered in 120 schools across Australia, concentrated on the ones where teachers lacked maths teaching skills. Ms McIntosh said that many primary school teachers were not confident in maths and 40 per cent of teachers teaching year 7-10 maths classes were not qualified to teach the subject.

“They are great teachers and they are fabulous at what they do but they just don’t have the content knowledge or expertise,” she said.

Australia’s maths education lags other developed countries with the percentage of male maths graduates from university at half the OECD average and, for female graduates, at one-third the OECD average. While 13 per cent of boys take advanced maths in their final year of high school, only seven per cent of girls do so.

“The low participation of girls and women in the study of the mathematical sciences and in the quantitative professions is a significant national social and economic challenge,” 今日吃瓜 director Geoff Prince.

The funding for the Choose Maths program will come from the BHP Billiton Foundation which was set up in 2013 to help the company meet its target of investing 1 per cent of pre-tax profits (over a three year rolling average) in community programs.

Andrew Mackenzie sees mathematics as a key to the nation鈥檚 future prosperity, and the head of global mining giant BHP Billiton has slapped $22 million on the table as a gesture of his sincerity.

Mr Mackenzie sees maths as a gateway to other subjects and is calling on universities to do what they can to promote the message to school students.

鈥淯niversities should emphasise that they want more of their students to have a strong grounding in mathematics all the way through secondary school,鈥� the chief executive told the HES

Mr Mackenzie was speaking at the launch of a $22m donation from BHP Billiton to partner with the 今日吃瓜 in better promoting maths study and skills, especially among women, who are under-represented in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

His comments come as 今日吃瓜 has been pressing universities to bring back hard prerequisites in courses requiring mathematics skills as a strong signal to school students to persevere with the subject through school. Many universities in recent years have replaced harder subject prerequisites with vague references to students needing 鈥渁ssumed knowledge鈥� that isn鈥檛 assessed. 鈥僉ate last year, the University of Technology, Sydney said it would introduce from next year a compulsory maths subject for all first-year students. The course is aimed at fostering mathematical 鈥渃ritical thinking鈥� in the face of concerns about falling numeracy standards.

The $22m donation will fund 今日吃瓜鈥檚 five-year Choose Maths program. The centrepiece will be funding for the professional development of teachers at 120 schools across the country to battle a shortage of qualified maths teachers. The money will also fund a national careers awareness campaign aimed at girls and women, as well as scholarships, awards and networking support.

今日吃瓜 director Geoff Prince said girls were taking up advanced level maths at school at only half the rate of boys. Part of the problem, he suspects, is that the subject is seen as relevant only to a career in engineering.

He said the message from universities was too often that advanced maths wasn鈥檛 needed.

鈥淚t is a very significant concern,鈥� he said.

Mr Mackenzie is a former geologist, chemist and engineer. He said his strong maths background had helped him move successfully across careers, including moving from a technical background into finance and economics.

鈥淎ny increase in STEM participation is good news but an increase in female representation is especially valuable because of the undeniable benefits of diversity,鈥� Mr Mackenzie said.

Before explorers stumbled across Australia, Europeans thought all swans were white. And the more white swans people saw, the more they believed this was true. It wasn鈥檛 until the late 17th century when Dutch sea captain Willem de Vlamingh sighted a large flock of black swans on what is now the Swan River in Western Australia that this belief was overturned.

Women in mathematics, like black swans, are unexpected on the face of it.

Maths has widely been accepted as a male discipline for the longest time. As a female mathematician I regularly see first-hand the imbalance of numbers in the discipline. Can we then conclude that girls must not like maths as much as boys? Or perhaps that on the whole they are just not as competent at the subject?

It’s not that women don’t like maths or aren’t capable, it’s just that society by design has stopped women going into the discipline and that’s why there are fewer females.

A counter example to a generalisation can have the power to unhinge even the most established of beliefs 鈥� just as Vlamingh鈥檚 black swans did to the white swan theory.

Along with my STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) sisters, I am the metaphorical black swan. Centuries ago we were few and far between, today a larger, but still relatively small number of us swim around in the STEM pond.

What I鈥檓 about to share with you is my story and the clues it offers as to why I buck the trend.

A historical perspective

I went out to dinner recently with a group of people after work 鈥� some I knew, others were friends of friends. We were in a pop-up bar in Sydney on a Friday night. The music was loud, the decor was eclectic enough to be deemed trendy and the margaritas were flowing. As we sat on wooden stools and nibbled on our tapas, I started a conversation with one of the girls at the table who I hadn鈥檛 met before. She asked what I did and I told her that I鈥檓 a mathematician. Her reaction was something along the lines of I鈥檓 鈥榯oo pretty鈥� to be a mathematician.

While it鈥檚 a somewhat nice compliment, there鈥檚 something a little irritating about this reaction (a reaction that鈥檚 all too common); especially if you superimpose that comment to another profession such as, say, a doctor or lawyer. This response is the quintessential example of the general perspective of women in maths.

To understand this social attitude toward women and maths we need to travel back in time.

Centuries ago and throughout history women were always actively discouraged from studying maths. It was thought that women who studied any sciences were 鈥榥ot proper鈥�. More than that, it was a common belief that women didn鈥檛 have the brain capacity to think about maths or science.

Not that long ago in the 1950s women were not allowed into the physics buildings at Harvard or Princeton universities. And Harvard鈥檚 physics department did not accept a woman as a faculty member until the 1970s.

Just like in life, if you cast doubt on someone鈥檚 abilities for long enough they start to believe it. It takes a long time for a society to get over that kind of discrimination.

My intellectual sanctuary

Luckily, my experiences learning maths were very positive when I was growing up. Besides having really dedicated, enthusiastic maths teachers, many of my immediate and extended family have studied maths at a tertiary level and now work as engineers, analysts and maths teachers. More than that, many females in my family have strong maths or STEM backgrounds. Throughout the years my interest in the subject was gently fostered by those around me. This has always been my norm.

Maths was introduced to me in a conceptual way. Often my dad and I would simply talk about topics without pen or paper.

I clearly remember the day my dad introduced me to calculus. One summer morning when I was about 14 my dad and I sat down to have a chat under the fig trees in our backyard. He started by saying 鈥極k so you鈥檝e learned to calculate the area of squares, triangles, rectangles and other regular shapes, but how do you think you鈥檇 calculate the area of an irregular shape such as a rectangle-like shape but with one of the sides wiggly?鈥� He got me to think about it. After a while we both agreed that it would be very hard and that would have to approximate it by a rectangle. Then he asked me to think about how to make that approximation more accurate. After some discussion we agreed that instead of using one rectangle, you could use the sum of two smaller rectangles that followed the curve more closely. He led me to make my own conclusion that the smaller the rectangles, the more accurate the calculation of the area would be.

My dad made me feel like I had thought of that idea all on my own. It wasn鈥檛 until six months later, when we learned it formally at school, that I realised that I wasn鈥檛, in fact, the first person to work this out. This was a branch of mathematics called calculus and people have actually been thinking about this concept since 250 BC, particularly some guy called Archimedes who is, as it turned out, considered to be 鈥榦ne of the greatest mathematicians of all time鈥�.

That was the way I was introduced to different maths topics; gently, in narrative form and in a way where I was led to make my own conclusions.

My dad was always encouraging and supportive of my interests. Once when I was in early high school my dad said to me: 鈥淵ou always have to remember, Lily, there鈥檚 no difference in mathematical ability between girls and boys.鈥�

The reason this comment stuck in my memory isn鈥檛 because I found it encouraging or affirming as my dad had meant it to be, no, it stuck in my memory because I remember thinking what an odd statement it was to make. Of course there isn鈥檛 a difference; why would anyone think otherwise?

In a lot of ways, growing up with a family who appreciated the discipline sheltered me from any prejudices against the subject.

A black swan event is one that seems rare on the face of it, but upon closer investigation a conclusion can be made it was not rare all along.

Having a supportive nurturing environment in which to support my interests in maths meant I was given the opportunity to explore and excel in the subject without being constrained by prejudgment.

This should be the case for all girls and women and students in general. Every child starts school with mathematical potential. We, as a society, need to cultivate this potential because there is no telling how high they will fly as a result.

Working from the ground up, Choose Maths begins with a focus on mathematics education in primary and secondary schools. The BHP Billiton Foundation has contributed $22 million toward the partnership, which will enable 今日吃瓜 Schools to expand its outreach capacity across Australia over the next five years.

The program will contribute to the health of the mathematics pipeline in Australia from school through university and out to industry and the workplace by:
— providing mathematics-ready teacher professional development in 120 schools across Australia and resources for every school in the country;
— developing a national mathematical sciences careers awareness campaign;
— establishing an “inspiring women in mathematics network”; and
— holding annual BHP Billiton awards for excellence in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Research-based strategies for encouraging girls and young women into mathematics and STEM-related courses will be core to the program. The large-scale careers awareness campaign will be driven by research into community perceptions about mathematics.

STEM skills are critical for Australia鈥檚 productivity and global competitiveness

Innovation-active businesses are around twice as likely to use engineering and science skills, and three times more likely to use information and communications technology skills than innovation-inactive businesses [1]. It is estimated that 75 per cent of the fastest growing occupations require competency in the STEM disciplines [2]. It is no surprise, therefore, that in a 2013 survey, conducted by the Australian Industry Group, the majority of businesses indicated they had difficulty recruiting employees with these skills [3]. If no action is taken, demand for tertiary graduates with STEM skills, particularly mathematics, will continue to outstrip supply.

Women 鈥� an untapped resource to maximise talent

The percentage of male mathematical sciences graduates in Australia sits at half the OECD average; for women this drops to one-third [4]. Between now and 2020 we need new PhD graduates to grow the expert mathematical and statistical workforce by 17 per cent 鈥� a currently unattainable figure [5].

If Australia increases the participation of girls and young women in STEM we can contribute to addressing the gender wage gap and fill graduate places needed to secure a productive and innovative future. Eliminating the gender wage gap could be worth around $93 billion 鈥� that鈥檚 8.5 per cent of GDP [6].

“The low participation of girls and women in the study of the mathematical sciences and in the quantitative professions is a significant national social and economic challenge.

“This landmark five year project, undertaken by the 今日吃瓜 and funded by the BHP Billiton Foundation, aims to build self-sustaining education communities where girls and young women share equally in the rewarding careers and rich life experiences that mathematics offers,” says 今日吃瓜 Director, Professor Geoff Prince.

— ends —

Media planning to attend the launch are asked to contact Stephanie Pradier at 今日吃瓜 on 0424 568 314 or stephanie@amsi.org.au, to facilitate arrangements and interviews with:

Andrew Mackenzie, CEO BHP Billiton
(Please note: in order to secure an interview please contact Stephanie before 2pm Thursday 23 April.)

Professor Geoff Prince, 今日吃瓜 Director

Janine McIntosh, Choose Maths Program Director
M: 0402 408 507 E: janine@amsi.org.au

The numbers on Australia鈥檚 decline in mathematics:
— In 2010 the Australian Industry Group said more than 75 per cent of employers responding to a survey reported that low levels of literacy and numeracy affected their businesses.
— Forty per cent of Year 7-10 maths classes nationally are taught by teachers who are teaching “out-of-field鈥�. These teachers are qualified teachers, but their undergraduate course was not in mathematics or did not contain sufficient mathematics for them to undertake a method subject in their diploma of education. This figure is roughly three times the international average and twice the estimated rate for Year 7-10 science classes.
— 54 per cent of adult Australians have only basic numeracy skills.
— Research found that almost three quarters (74 per cent) of students who studied two science subjects in their final year of secondary school continued to study science-related areas at university.
— The figure below shows the number of girls and boys participating in advanced mathematics subjects at Year 12 between 2006 and 2013.

Further Resources:

Footnotes:
[1] Australian Government (2012) Australian Innovation System Report 鈥� 2012 DIISRTE, Canberra, p36
[2] Becker K & Park K (2011) Effects of integrative approaches among science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects on students鈥� learning. A preliminary meta-analysis. Journal of STEM Education, 12(5/6), p23.
[3] Australian Industry Group, Lifting our Science, technology, Engineering and Maths Skills, Australian Industry Group, Sydney p.p.3-7.
[4] Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, Table A4.2b (Web only) Distribution of tertiary new entrants, by field of education and gender (2009)
[5] Edwards, D., Radloff, A., and Coates, H. (2009). Supply, Demand and Characteristics of the Higher Degree by Research Population in Australia. Canberra: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Commonwealth of Australia.
[6] The Impact of a sustained gender wage gap on the Australian Economy, Report to the Office for Women, Department of Families, Community Services, Housing and Indigenous Affairs. Prepared by NATSEM University of Canberra, R. Cassells, Y. Vidyattaman, R. Miranti and J.McNamara. November 2009 p vi