The scholarships aim to help address the skills shortage currently faced by the electronics industry.
Five first year university students and three TAFE SA students were awarded a cash scholarship of $1,000 as an incentive to continue their studies. Four secondary school teachers were given funds to attend electronics company tours and awareness sessions.
Andrew Barley received one of the eight $1,000 student scholarships and typifies the high calibre of applicants. Currently, Andrew is studying a University of Adelaide double degree in – Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical and Electronic) and Bachelor of Science (Physics). Andrew has received high distinctions for four subjects and awaits the results for five remaining subjects.
Another recipient of a cash scholarship is TAFE SA student Douglas Tilbrook who is studying an Advanced Diploma of Electrotechnology at Regency Park TAFE. In March this year, he was deemed to be the most outstanding diploma student at Tea Tree Gully TAFE, having just completed his diploma in electronic engineering.
A recipient of the teacher scholarship was John Barkley a design and technology teacher from Nuriootpa High School. John has been teaching electronics for 10 years across years 8 to 12. He aims to use his scholarship to increase networking with other local schools. This is due to Nuriootpa High School having opened a $3.5 million Technology Centre on July 2nd. To broaden the impact of this state of the art teaching facility, John aims to establish a network for teaching electronics with teachers from surrounding schools.
The scholarship scheme is one of the many activities to address the skills shortage in the electronics industry.