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Attleboro College Hosts Education Talk with Lt. Governor

Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray spoke at Bristol Community College about science and technology education.

Massachusetts is looking to encourage students to look at science and technology related fields of study and employment though the continued development of its Science Technology Engineering Math Network.

Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray spoke at Thursday afternoon about the STEM Network and said he had spoken to many employers to see what they are looking for from recent graduates.

“The number one issue is making sure we are workforce training, preparedness and education,” Murray said of the employers' needs. 

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The hope is that STEM programs at younger age levels will help grow interest in these subjects which will continue throughout high school and college.

As of now, only one-third of Bachelor's degrees earned in the United States are in STEM fields. This is compared to more than half in other nations such as China and Japan. That number needs to rise for America to continue to compete in the global marketplace, according to Murray.

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“Growth in STEM jobs has been three times greater than that of non-STEM jobs over the last ten years,” Murray said adding that STEM workers earn, on average, 26 percent more and are less likely to face unemployment.

Massachusetts currently has an unemployment rate that has held steady at 7.6 percent for the past three months, which is below the national rate of 9.1 percent. The state has also added 53,000 jobs since the start of January, according to Murray.

“Investment in targeted programs like this makes a huge difference,” Murray said.

He said he would like to continue the expansion of STEM programs throughout the state. The key word used in discussing the further expansion was “scalability” which Murray defined as “Things that can be easily replicated, expanded, and used throughout the system.”

Murray said he would also like to see the achievement gap lessened in the STEM fields.

“We don’t have the numbers that we’d like in women and minorities, so there’s a concerted effort to try to do a level of outreach," he said. "The interesting thing is that some of data shows that more women do better in mathematics, but for whatever reason they don’t take that to the next level."

Another possibility is that engineering fields can appear to be male dominated ones.

“We need to do some work in that area," Murray said. “We need to accelerate our efforts. That’s the goal of the STEM Council."

"The Lieutenant Governor has always been a strong supporter of education, especially at community colleges," said Bristol Community College President, John Sbrega.

To further the growth of the STEM Network, Kathleen Kirby, the director of CONNECT, said that a STEM Expo is being planned for May, which will be open for employers, teachers and students and expose them to various STEM careers and educational opportunities.

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