Login
iscover
Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price has announced additional funding for the Commonwealth government’s Defence Industry Internship Program (DIIP) to help expand the capability of Australia’s future defence industry workforce.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
The purpose of the DIIP is to increase awareness of career opportunities in the defence industry and provide student interns with the opportunity to gain real-world work experience in a growing sector. This is an opportunity for SMEs to showcase the defence industry as interesting and technologically advanced and to gain exposure to the skills, aptitudes and abilities of future graduates.
The program gives engineering students experience in defence industry through 12-week internships with defence industry micro, small and medium businesses. This boost to funding will provide an extra 30 industry placements, taking the total number of internships to 200 nationwide over the next two years.
Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price welcomed the expanded funding opportunity, saying, "We are committed to supporting defence industry to obtain its workforce of tomorrow, especially during this time of uncertainty. The workplace experience for engineering students is being delivered over the next three years under the $7.3 million program."
It’s another industry-focused component out of the Commonwealth government’s $1 billion Defence’s economic stimulus package. The program matches small to medium sized defence industry enterprises (SMEs) with students nearing the end of an undergraduate engineering degree for a paid 12-week internship (450 hours).
Seventy engineering internships will be offered during 2020. Approximately 3,000 SMEs support the Australian Defence Force.
Minister Price added, "Providing the next generation of Australian engineers with experience in defence industry is vital to their development, and will help build the skills defence businesses need to succeed. This innovative program is just one of many ways the government is partnering with defence industry to support its critical work, and help grow a robust and resilient defence industry workforce."
Students are offered a paid 12-week internship of $915 per week (37.5 hour working week, as a casual employee), contributing to an SME engineering project. This is an opportunity to gain real-life experience using the latest cutting edge technologies with leaders within the industry.
Internship hours can be allocated towards a student’s required practical industry experience hours. The internship cannot be used as a credit for a course of study but provides practical working experience as required by most Australian universities to complete your engineering degree.
Students can apply for up to five internships, in order of preference, all around Australia. These placements are a great addition to a student’s CV.
More information on the DIIP can be found here. Further information on the Defence Industry Skilling and STEM Strategy can be found here.
