What Happens to Graduate Scientists? A British Perspective on the STEM Skills Shortage Debate

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Policy Perspectives and the Future of STEM Education

Abstract

A ‘crisis account’ of shortages of well-qualified scientists, engineers, mathematicians and technologists has shaped education policy in the USA and the UK for decades. The apparent poor quality of school science education along with insufficient numbers of well qualified teachers have been linked to skills shortages by government and other agencies since at least the time of the Second World War. There is, however, an alternative account that challenges the received view of a skills deficit and questions the evidence for sustained and long term shortages across the sector. The study reported here contributes to this alternative perspective on STEM skills shortages by examining the career trajectories of STEM graduates in the UK over a 40year period.

Authors

• Emma Smith, The University of Warwick

• Patrick Kieran White, University of Leicester