Find out about a problem affecting the electronics industry in South Australia.


PATRICK EMMETT: The electronics industry is one of SA's little-known success stories.

Worth $3 billion a year, it employs 9,000 workers, and is already the same size as the wine industry.

In six years it's predicted to become the State's second-largest earner, but it's already turning away money because it can't get enough staff.

Jason Kuchel is from the Electronics Industry Association. He says the drought of scientists and engineers is now so bad, leading high-tech companies are being forced to outsource contracts interstate or simply turn them down.

And with employment in the industry growing at 8 per cent a year, the problem is quickly getting worse.

JASON KUCHEL: Industry has had to look overseas and interstate to be able to pick up those people, but there is a worldwide shortage of electronics engineers, and so that's not always easy to do, and it also means paying those people a lot more money than industry would like to have to pay if they had a choice.

PATRICK EMMETT: The source of the problem is here -- in the classroom. Science students have become an endangered species.

While science and maths have never been the most fashionable subjects, over the past two decades they've become downright unpopular.

The number of students studying physics and chemistry has halved and it's continuing to fall.

BARONESS PROFESSOR SUSAN GREENFIELD, THINKER IN RESIDENCE: They can't see the relevance to everyday life -- girls, in particular.

I, for example, when I was a schoolgirl, I was interested in how people fall in love and why wars start and relationships, and distilling water or looking at an amoeba under a microscope, doesn't really help you do those things.

PATRICK EMMETT: At the other end of the spectrum is Baroness Susan Greenfield.

Nothing excites her more than test tubes and bunsen burners.

BARONESS PROFESSOR SUSAN GREENFIELD: I think what one ought to do is really re-examine the curriculum, and for girls and boys alike, actually try and make science much more relevant to everyday life.

PATRICK EMMETT: Andrew Dodson is one teacher who feels the pressure, but he's found a way to get his chemistry class out of their classrooms and into the scientific world.

They've joined a scheme being run by the Investigator Science Centre that takes students to high-technology companies.

The reason behind this scheme is that students can't see a clear career path in science like they do with subjects like law or accountancy.

A visit to somewhere like Codan shows students where logarithms can lead.

And we can happily report that the trip to Codan seems to have had at least one success.

CATHERINE MOULT-SMITH, ST IGNATIUS STUDENT: I found it was, like, an eye-opening experience of how science could be applied in this way and I'm actually thinking about it.