Women with pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in en­gi­neer­ing make up more than half of the lec­tur­ers in the drilling op­er­a­tions pro­gramme at the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC).  In ad­di­tion, two of NESC’s weld­ing in­struc­tors are women.

Just a cou­ple of many mile­stones re­port­ed by the NESC in a re­lease is­sued in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2022.  The NESC says it has been do­ing its part to #break­the­bias in the male-dom­i­nat­ed en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al sec­tors.

“Over the last sev­er­al years, the NESC has made con­cert­ed ef­forts to at­tract and train young women in tech­ni­cal skills for the en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al sec­tors. Our fe­male grad­u­ates have gone on to start their own busi­ness­es ser­vic­ing the en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al sec­tors or have gained em­ploy­ment with­in these sec­tors,” the NESC re­ports.

Ta-lisa Whar­wood, cer­ti­fied welder and the NESC’s 2018 vale­dic­to­ri­an, had a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to work on the new methanol plant in La Brea.

“I’m re­al­ly proud to be able to say that I worked on the new methanol plant in La Brea. That was one of the first projects I worked on af­ter grad­u­at­ing,” Ta-lisa Whar­wood said.

She added: “On this par­tic­u­lar project, I was the on­ly fe­male welder on­site but there have been a cou­ple projects where there were oth­er more ex­pe­ri­enced women on site. I ap­pre­ci­at­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with them and I learnt a lot.”

Asked if she en­coun­tered any gen­der-based dis­crim­i­na­tion at work, Ta-lisa shared: “Some­times, my male col­leagues can be a lit­tle ap­pre­hen­sive when they see me on the first day. They usu­al­ly warm up to me when they see the qual­i­ty of my work. But I’ve al­so def­i­nite­ly had to ver­bal­ly stand up for my­self at times too. I want to help break the bias for oth­er young women com­ing in­to the field.”

Young women make up 17% of the NESC’s stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, a sig­nif­i­cant jump from years past. Up­on com­ple­tion of their diplo­mas in pro­grammes like weld­ing, elec­tri­cal, au­to­mo­tive main­te­nance and IT ser­vices, these women will join their sis­ters in ‘break­ing the bias’ in their fields.

Kern Dass, Pres­i­dent of the NESC, says as an equal op­por­tu­ni­ty em­ploy­er, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is build­ing a work­place where women thrive in their ca­reers.

“The NESC is an ad­vo­cate of equal op­por­tu­ni­ty for all. We are com­mit­ted to ‘break­ing the bias’ and we’re ex­treme­ly proud of our achieve­ments so far,” he said.

He added: “Women have unique, in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to make to the en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al sec­tors. As an or­ga­ni­za­tion, the NESC will con­tin­ue to do our part to sup­port women as they pur­sue their ca­reer as­pi­ra­tions in in­dus­try.”