STEM Student Teacher Internship Programme

In April 2016 Accenture in partnership with DCU and the 30% Club, launched a new programme aimed at highlighting the careers available in STEM to students studying to be teachers as well as offering them real work experience in a corporate environment. The decision to run this programme was driven by research commissioned by Accenture in 2013 and 2015. Reports were produced on attracting more females into STEM which showed that while the vast majority of girls appreciate that STEM subjects create a lot of career opportunities, stereotypes persist and a high proportion of females believe that the subjects are too difficult and better suited to males. Teachers were identified as key influencers on students’ subject choices yet three quarters of teachers surveyed do not consider themselves influential. Over half of teachers in the 2013 study used the words “average,” “poor” or “very poor” to describe the overall level of information available on STEM-related career opportunities.

Students from the third year of the B.Sc in Science Education at DCU were selected for the pilot programme.

DCU would like to extend the internship programme to other companies who can give STEM related work experience. The 2017 Target is to have internship placements for all students doing the Science Education 3rd year programme (30 Students). 2018+ is to introduce to primary education training and make Internship formal part of course accreditation.

Please contact eilish.mcloughlin@dcu.ie for more information if you are interested. A brochure for the programme is available dcu-stem-teacher-internships.