Reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, “The university (UTS) applied to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board for permission to give 10 (ATAR) adjustment points to female students applying for engineering and construction degrees next year.”

ATAR is a number between 0 and 99.95 (top 0.05%), telling the students their rank for their year group. The UTS engineering ATAR requirement is 79, i.e. you will need to be in the top 21% of students in order to study engineering. Women will now be able to study engineering with an ATAR of 69, while males who are just short of 79 will need to find another degree.

“Many universities allocate adjustment points based on disadvantage or illness, but UTS Director of Women in Engineering and IT, Arti Agarwal, said she believed the university would be the first to base them on gender.”

Imagine men receiving 10 bonus points to enter a female dominated course. Imagine a society ‘Men in Engineering and IT’ even existing.

“Women in Engineering and IT Cooperative Scholarship... Who is eligible? ATAR above 85, Female.”

Imagine a scholarship with a male gender requirement.

SBS states that “The university requested permission from the NSW Anti-Discrimination board in order to allow women the (ATAR) adjustment points.”

The ‘Anti-Discrimation’ board ended up approving this request, despite many people being against it.

Twitter comments:

“There are plenty of women who are smart enough, they just choose not to study engineering”

“If you think the best way to get more women into engineering is to lower the standards, aren’t you kind of openly saying you think female engineers aren’t as good as male engineers”

Articles:

  • The Sydney Morning Herald - “‘A hand up, not a handout’: UTS lowers engineering entry bar for women”
  • SBS - “After more female engineering and IT students, Sydney university lowers entry bar”