‘Principals as STEM leaders’ has govt backing

<h2>The federal government is backing a new initiative from school principals aimed at enhancing leadership and changing the way science&comma; technology&comma; engineering and mathematics &lpar;STEM&rpar; is taught in our schools&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>Minister for education and training Simon Birmingham said the Turnbull Government’s &OpenCurlyQuote;Principals as STEM Leaders’ project would strengthen the foundation for greater participation and engagement&comma; and ultimately better learning outcomes in STEM subjects&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We want to identify and replicate the best STEM leadership practices across Australia&comma;” Mr Birmingham said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations in Australia require skills in STEM so it’s vital our next generation of workers have the skills to thrive in the changing employment landscape&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It is no secret the performance of Australian students in STEM subjects has stagnated&comma; and even declined in some measures&comma; and this project will identify the leadership and teaching practices in STEM that are currently working well&comma; with the aim of rolling these practices out more broadly in our classrooms&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He said&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;it’s those leading approaches that we want to support to drive whole-of-school improvement in STEM engagement and learning outcomes”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The &dollar;2&period;6 million we’ve committed to this project will back the research&comma; development and piloting of professional learning approaches to build on principals’ STEM leadership skills&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;However&comma; while funding is important&comma; we know what’s more important is how it’s used which is why projects like this are so important&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;