Luring Territory Middle School Students Towards Digital Careers

Team Name

Alpha

Team Members

Project Description

Project

Problem:

Significant gap between the supply and demand of skilled professionals leading to Shortage of talent worldwide.

Aim: Prepare a globally competitive workforce prepared for the challenges of the future.
Prevailing Issues in Particular in Remote Areas of Northern territory

1) These regions often lack the necessary infrastructure and resources to provide comprehensive digital skills education and training.
2) Limited access to high-speed internet, advanced technology, and up-to-date learning materials; hinders the development of digital skills.
3) Lack of qualified teachers and mentors in remote areas

Data Insights
Northern Territory Australia is a geographical region of Australia that consists of the following statistics:

Population of Northern Territory Government in (2022): 252,030
Capital: Darwin with population: 120,000
Other States: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (accounts for 26.8% of NT's population).
Total Area: The Northern Territory's total area (1,349,129 km²)
(The ‘Top End’ of the Northern Territory has a coastline that extends more than 13,500 km.)

Demographics:

Males: 51.7 percent of people in the Northern Territory are male

Females: 48.3 percent are female

Income (2021)
The Median weekly income of Individuals: $ 936
The Median Weekly income for families: $ 2,213

Note: The most common type of family in the NT was families with children. In 2021, 44.7% of families were couples with children and 18.5% were one-parent families.

Solution:

As per above mentioned problem, it is evident that NT region is looking up to the digital career advancement of its middle school students in specific. The Data insights suggest that although govt is paying a lot of attention to it already. As a result, the majority of the schools located in the Outer Region or in more urban in nature has adapted and updated STEM curriculum and are incorporating it well. On the other hand, remote and very remote areas still need further attention to detail. Since those areas are lagging behind to meet the acara benchmarks.

The above data lists out the cities which fall in remote and very remote regions. And the data available for schools located in those particular remote regions.

Apparently, while forecasting the best possible solution, we take the benefit of the doubt that the remote and very remote areas do not have proper connectivity which causes them not to be able to update and activate their websites. Thus, this causes them lagging to properly incorporate the minimum digital knowledge curriculum designed by acara. This connectivity problem further leads to inadequate teaching staff, since they remain unable to upgrade themselves about recent trends in digital careers.

Our team suggests three phases to solve the problem:

1) Infrastructure Improvement by Installing Satellite Links

Installation of Satellite links and collaboration with Starlink Australia for the sake of consistent connectivity issues particularly in remote and very remote cities (as identified in the above data set).

2) Training the Staff

Training of Existing teaching staff and sending training teams there on a rotational basis with an agenda to upgrade them as per recent era's digital requirements, so they can lead the juniors well towards their digital careers.

3) Establishment of Digital Labs to Initiate Digital Activity

Once the staff is trained, it is mandatory that they provide continuous and holistic information and coaching of digital skills through their digital channels. The channels could be their websites, social media, or apps that contain material for children's digital career growth.

Data Story

Well, to go more holistic, we initially gathered the data of total cities in NT, then observed not only their population, but, also the territory marking, I.e. if the region, it is outsider, remote or very remote area. While doing so, we figured out some interesting facts about NT, for example, we found out that the majority of the teaching staff there consists of women as compared to men. And also that the majority of the households in NT have family structure households, meaning there are adults and children together rather than being parents only at home. And that gives hype to the concept of "FAFT", which means family as first teacher. The idea would be to spread awareness of digital accessibility and pursue digital careers.