This is good. Like many other types of work, men and women work well together. Engineering is in many ways an art, just like all building activities. Women have different thoughts. These are always contributions to every endeavor.

When "The standards" do not reflect the advancement of culture, they must be updated. This is not a statement in support of social justice. It is an understanding that every aspect of human life requires many perspectives. And women's perspectives have rarely been properly measured. Especially when it comes to the design of nearly everything women, and most men, use.

And: as elsewhere, more people will meet reasonable significant others in the workplace. This is also good.

With the lowered requirements for female candidates, male candidates would ideally prefer other universities that hold their peer candidates to same standards unless the university in question happens to be one of the best Australia has to offer. There's something even weirder in my country where a specific number of admissions can only be filled by female applicants, reserved in a sense. In case of lack of female applicants, those admissions would go waste thus reducing the total intake of admissions for the year. If a university compromises on admission criteria, you're practically giving a future employer a reason to differentiate between employees on basis of gender in terms of pay and everything else due to the comparative lenient standards held by the university. Using this as a pilot study where a comparative study of male and female students grades could yield more insights, as to whether female students perform as well as their male counterparts despite the easing.

It would seem that high school instruction in math and science may leave something to be desired, or that social norms in the region steer women away from interest and competence in math and science.

Okay. Not from Australia, but I have considered this for years in a different way. State colleges in the U.S. are required to meet certain minority standards.

I really didn't care until I came across it. It isn't fair to others, but that didn't bother me. Life sometimes isn't fair. I often saw minorities receiving, for free, additional tutoring. Didn't bother me.

What bothered me, and still does, was this. It devalued everyone's degree by putting into the working world graduated students who lack the natural ability to grasp more complex topics in the same manner as the other students.

there have been many tests (IQ tests spring to mind, as well as many college entrance exams) that have been shown to be written and administered in a way that (probably unwiittingly) favors certain groups. It wouldnt surprise me if this test has the same problem.

Does lowering the testing limit reflect an admission that the test itself isnt really worth that much, and the pool of candidates with lower test scores, would actually include a pool of people who might make better engineers? Maybe the test was set up to cull "undesirables" from engineering school, instead of culling those who would not make as good of engineers?

no shade to those with excellent test scores, but thats not exactly the only skill set youll need in real life.

not as bad as lowering the standards for women passing the physical tests for police, firefighters.
but still shouldn't happen. the best candidates should be accepted, period.
i sometimes wish that one of those bleeding heart lib assholes was stuck on the 4th floor of a building that was on fire & had to depend on a 130 lb woman on a ladder to save him. never happen of course b/c they wouldn't send a woman up on a ladder to rescue him to begin with.
all they do with these lower standards is discriminate against better qualified candidates. period.

Encouraging women to persue engineering degrees is a positive thing. Lowering the bar for expected performance because they are female? NO!! Lowering the bar for anyone is not acceptable!! Either you can perform or not, that's the issue and that's the way it should stay for everyone!

Since I don't Pay Taxes to Australia I have No Thoughts about what they are doing Down Under.

I say absolutely NOT.
Either lower the required scores for BOTH male and female applicants, or
leave them as is, and require ALL applicants to achieve the scores.
They should NEVER lower the scores to enable more females to enter the
program.
That's bullshit.

from the guardian, a better known source, and i excerpt here at the top one part of the below that may make a difference:

UTS Women in Engineering and IT director Arti Agarwal insisted the move would not lower standards.

“We’re not taking in underperforming students or doing tokenism here,” she told Guardian Australia. “Nobody is getting a free pass … They all have to do all the degree requirements [and] internships.”

okay here is the actual article in its entirety:

University lowers entry score for female applicants in male-dominated courses
University of Technology Sydney makes 10-point adjustment in hope to address gender imbalance in engineering, computing and construction

Lisa Martin

@LMARTI
Thu 29 Aug 2019 02.55 EDTFirst published on Thu 29 Aug 2019 02.34 EDT
The University of Technology Sydney has received approval to make the adjustment to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (Atar) of female students in some degrees
The University of Technology Sydney has received approval to make the adjustment to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (Atar) of female students in some degrees Photograph: Justin Ouellette/Getty Images
The University of Technology Sydney is trying to encourage more young women to study engineering, computing and construction degrees by adjusting year 12 entry scores for female applicants.

The university has received approval from the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board to make a 10-point adjustment to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of female students applying for those degrees for the 2020 academic year.

The university hopes it will help address gender imbalances in those male-dominated industries.

UTS Women in Engineering and IT director Arti Agarwal insisted the move would not lower standards.

“We’re not taking in underperforming students or doing tokenism here,” she told Guardian Australia. “Nobody is getting a free pass … They all have to do all the degree requirements [and] internships.”

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Agarwal said the move was part of the university’s 30-year effort to improve gender equity in engineering, which includes primary school and high school outreach programs and mentoring for female engineers.

“We looked at the performance of Atar and the performance of [grade point average] so a lower Atar did not mean they would get a lower GPA. A higher Atar did not mean they were best in the class,” Agarwal said.

She noted a large number of engineering students gained entrance into the undergraduate degree through other pathways, which often were lower than the year 12 Atar minimum score.

Agarwal said previously that, on average, females received 4-8% of UTS offers to study mechanical engineering/mechatronics. The university expects the score adjustment will increase female study offers to about 20%.

In civil engineering on average 16% of offers are to female students and this could rise to 20%. In computer science 10% of offers are to female students and this could lift to 19%.

According to Engineers Australia, 84% of Australian engineering graduates are men. Female engineers make up 13% of the workforce. Australia faces a looming shortage of engineers.

A 2017 Engineers Australia report found part of the problem was low levels of female high school students were studying the prerequisite subjects. Less than 6% of girls nationally studied physics in year 12, with advanced maths at 6.2%.

Engineers Australia’s professional diversity manager Justine Romanis backed the UTS move.

“We need to be disruptive – what we have been doing to date is just not working,” she said.

She said to attract more females to engineering it was important to plant the seeds early with research backing career discussion with children as young as year 4.

Virginia Singh, who studied a double degree in mechanical engineering and science at Deakin University and now works in the defence industry, does not think it is a good idea. There were two female students in her mechanical engineering course. Singh’s father and brothers are also qualified engineers.

“I don’t necessarily think that it’s the score stopping females from joining engineering, there’s more so a stigma associated with it or Stem in general,” Singh told the Guardian. “There’s a perception that you need a strong Stem and technical background and although you need that, most of the day-to-day work is soft skills as opposed to … technical calculations every day.”

The UTS announcement has attracted some criticism on social media.

Sophie Baker
@SophiesBaked
Replying to @TheTodayShow
As a woman I'm offended! This move reinforces the myth that women as not as smart as men.

2,627
8:54 PM - Aug 28, 2019
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🦝shaniqua707🦟🧮
(@shaniqua7071)
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.
So being a woman is a disability now?

August 29, 2019

Godot
@GodotIsW8ing4U
Replying to @smh
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

45
7:01 PM - Aug 28, 2019
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In 2016, the Australian National University announced that it was broadening its admission processes for engineering degrees away from reliance on Atar scores towards broader selection criteria.

Atar is a number between 0.00 and 99.95 that indicates a student’s position relative to all the students in their age group.