THIS week's Community Column is written by Jamie Greene, who was elected as a Conservative MSP for the West of Scotland region in May 2016.

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Six months have passed since I was first elected to the Scottish Parliament. During that time, between the frantic task of learning how to be a parliamentarian, I’ve had the chance to speak in some extremely important debates.

This week two topics were discussed of particular relevance to the West of Scotland.

The first was on hate crime: In my speech I talked about what it was like growing up in the West of Scotland when sectarianism was rife and how my own experiences shaped my ascent into adulthood.

I’ve both witnessed racism in the workplace and on more than one occasion been on the receiving end of homophobic abuse. Scotland has come a long way since those days but challenges still remain. As policy-makers it still rests on us to talk about these often uncomfortable issues and move forward in completely eradicating it from our society.

The second debate I took part in this week was the significance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in our curriculum. How we prepare our youth for the rapidly changing workplace is a challenge that needs to be addressed; STEM can provide Scotland a pipeline of well-educated, flexible workers with a diverse set of skills. Let’s consider how this affects the Clyde.

You’ll have seen recently the decision by the UK Government to build eight new frigates on our shores.

This a crucial piece of investment to our local economy that will bring jobs to the area for years to come, but it’s worth remembering that these opportunities will only continue whilst we produce the people with the right skills to carry out the work.

Whether its engineers for submarines or software programmers for our digital economy, it is up to us to facilitate an environment for our talent to grow. Scotland has suffered from a lack of focus on STEM in recent years yet the importance of these subjects has grown.

Reversing recent trends and putting emphasis back into the STEM subjects will be critical in ensuring that the Clyde continues to produce an intelligent, diverse, flexible and innovative workforce in the years to come.

I call on the Scottish Government to address the imbalance in females taking up these subjects, address teacher shortages in our schools and reverse the cuts to college places. These are holding back our ability to take Scotland through the great fourth industrialised revolution that is waiting on our doorstep.