Fair Access to the Engineering Profession€¦ · Fair Access to the Engineering Profession Introduction In 2009 the Panel on Fair Access, chaired by Rt. Hon. Alan Milburn MP published

ASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITY Fair Access to the

Engineering Profession

iASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITY

Fair Access to the Engineering Profession

AcknowledgementsThis report was written by Chris Kirby and Dr Rhys Morgan.

With special thanks to the members of engineering profession who contributed to the case studies.

Any comments should be sent to: [email protected]

E4E members are:

iiASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITYFair Access to the Engineering Profession

IndexExecutive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Raising aspirations and providing opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Fair Access Escalator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Case Study 1: Student access to qualifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Case study 2: Co-ordinated careers information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Case Study 3: The Big Bang Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Case study 4: Role models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Case study 5: Engaging under-represented groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Case study 6: Supporting vocational pathways in schools and colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Case study 7: Access to civil engineering careers via the Apprenticeship route . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Case study 8: Engineering Council’s Engineering Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Case study 9: The engineering profession diversity programme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Case study 10: Ladders to progression and to the profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Case study 11: Broad commitment to fair access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Case study 12: Support for Women Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

What Works? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Barriers To Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Measuring Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

About Education for Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

1ASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITY


Executive SummaryThis report highlights why fair access matters to engineering, what the profession is doing to promote fair access and how the profession intends to make progress.

Engineering underpins the UK’s success in all areas of the economy. If this is to continue we must ensure a sufficient supply of people with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills1. There is therefore an immediate need to attract talent from all sections of society to help meet this demand. Engineering is already looking beyond its traditional recruitment sources, promoting itself widely and providing varied and flexible routes into engineering while maintaining professional standards.

The profession’s Fair Access Escalator which we have developed for this report shows the five areas in which the engineering community’s actions promote social mobility:

There are clear parallels between these five areas and the “life cycle approach” presented in the government’s social mobility strategy.

In this report we present a series of cases studies spread across the five elements of the Fair Access Escalator. These illustrate the breadth and range of work being done to provide, operate and promote fair access to the engineering profession.

We also identify a number of key barriers to further improving access to the engineering profession, these being:

l the current direction of education policy in England with emphasis on academic qualifications and low recognition of the value of technical, practical subjects;

l the removal of statutory careers education from schools in England and the reforms to Careers Information, Advice and Guidance;

l the removal of Education Maintenance Allowance and the increase in student tuition fees.

Importantly, we recognise that widening participation and social mobility through the engineering profession is a continuing issue that should be properly addressed and monitored over time. Education for Engineering (E4E) commits to measuring and reporting on the profession’s progress through:

l A periodic ‘Fair Access to Engineering’ review;

l Establishing agreed measures to show the trends in the diversity of the profession and arranging the collection and analysis of relevant data including reference to Apprenticeships, Engineering Technicians and routes taken into Institution membership;

l Continuing to act in all relevant areas and seeking to remove all barriers to fair access to the engineering profession.

1 Jobs and growth: the importance of engineering skills to the UK economy; RAEng; 2012

STANDARDS Setting industry-relevant entry standards

ACCESS Operating fair and flexible entry processes

COMMUNICATION Informing people about engineering opportunities

EDUCATIONFostering relevant learning experiences for young people

MOTIVATION Sparking young people’s interest

Fair Access Escalator

2ASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITYFair Access to the Engineering Profession

RecommendationsThe engineering profession demonstrates in this report that it is working hard to improve fair access to engineering. It has been working on many aspects of the Panel for Access recommendations. These are highlighted throughout the report.

However, the engineering community believes that the Coalition Government itself has put up many barriers to social mobility and is hampering progress to improving social mobility in the UK. E4E makes the following recommendations to government and to the Fair Access Panel to improve the opportunity for social mobility in the UK.

➔ Recommendation 1Across England only 50% of young people achieve the necessary mathematics and science qualifications to progress towards engineering careers. However, E4E research highlighted in this report shows that there are significant regional differences where attainment is even lower. This variation in performance should not be tolerated. E4E has shown how regional variation can be mapped. However, it should not be the job of the engineering profession. The Department for Education should undertake detailed regional and local analysis of attainment in sciences and mathematics, taking into account pupil characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status. It should then take steps to close gaps in performance.

➔ Recommendation 2There is a serious issue with progression in science and mathematics in the UK. If young people achieve the necessary qualifications at age 16, they are able to progress to higher qualifications. If they do not achieve, then there is an overwhelming probability they will never catch up. Department for Education official statistics show that of the young people who fail to achieve A*–C grades in GCSE mathematics at age 16, only 17% managed to achieve the equivalent level 2 qualification by the age of 19. We welcome government’s intention for all young people to study mathematics until the age of 18, but there must be increased investment in post-16 mathematics education or students who fall behind will never catch up.

➔ Recommendation 3E4E welcomes the current proposals to make changes to school accountability measures in England that will remove the disincentives on schools to offer vocational qualifications such as engineering. However, technical subjects are underfunded and schools will still focus efforts on academic subjects. The UK needs excellent engineers from all walks of life to stimulate the economy. University Technical Colleges, while demonstrating excellent provision are too small in number to close the skills gap. Government must invest in better technical education in all schools across the country.

➔ Recommendation 4The engineering profession has long held Apprenticeships in high regard, and it is this long-term support that gives the Apprenticeship brand cross-party support today. An Apprenticeship must be high-quality and long duration and it should be a real job with real training. In its reforms to Apprenticeships, government should use the Engineering Profession’s competence standard UK-SPEC as the underpinning standard for apprenticeships in our sectors. This would enable individuals completing an apprenticeship at levels 3 and above to progress directly to professional registration within our profession, providing them with greater mobility in the employment market and an opportunity to progress within the profession.

➔ Recommendation 5The engineering profession prides itself on its multiple pathways toward professional registration. Many of today’s engineering business leaders emerged from the Apprentice route. Higher Apprenticeships offer an excellent pathway to the profession. Government should prioritise funding for Higher Apprenticeships and when reporting on Apprenticeship starts, government should clearly differentiate data on age, level of apprenticeship and sector subject area.

➔ Recommendation 6E4E welcomes the recent extension to careers guidance in schools downwards to year 8 (12–13 year olds) and upwards to years 12 and 13 (16–18 year olds). However, we have deep concerns that the removal of statutory duty of careers education in schools and the changes to the duties on schools around careers guidance in schools means that many young people are making decisions about their future with little or no valuable face-to-face support at all. The current approach is particularly damaging for young people from poor backgrounds and flies in the face of the government’s commitment to improving social mobility. Government needs to completely re-think its policy on Careers Education and Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) for young people.



IntroductionIn 2009 the Panel on Fair Access, chaired by Rt. Hon. Alan Milburn MP published its report on fair access to the professions. Unleashing Aspirations concluded that the UK professions were increasingly closed off to people from non-privileged backgrounds. In May 2012, Mr Milburn reported on progress made since the Unleashing Aspirations. The progress report Fair Access to Professional Careers stated that the professions sit at the heart of the social mobility agenda for change, and commented that:

“Across the professions as a whole, the glass ceiling has been scratched but not broken. The professions still lag way behind the social curve. If anything, the evidence suggests that since 2009, taken as a whole, the professions – despite some pockets of considerable progress – have done too little to catch up. The general picture seems to be of mainly minor changes in the social composition of the professions.”

Despite a few references to the engineering profession, in particular recognising and commending the flexible entry routes into the engineering profession, Fair Access to Professional Careers did not provide much information on the work being done by the engineering community on this agenda. The purpose of this report is to highlight why fair access matters to engineering, what the profession is doing to promote fair access and how the profession intends to make progress.

Defining Social Mobility

The government defines social mobility as, “…a measure of how free people are to improve their position in society”, and distinguishes intergenerational from intragenerational mobility.Intergenerational mobility concerns how life outcomes are determined by parental social or economic status while intragenerational mobility concerns how life outcomes are determined by personal social or economic status at an earlier time in life. Government is primarily concerned with intergenerational mobility, their intent being to break the “transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next.” Intragenerational mobility is important, but as a way of further improving intergenerational mobility. Relative and absolute mobility: absolute mobility concerns how people “do better” than their parents while relative mobility concerns the comparative chances of people with different backgrounds ending up in certain social or income groups. The Government’s focus is on relative mobility. For any given level of skill and ambition, regardless of an individual’s background, everyone should have an equal chance of getting the job they want or reaching a higher income.


BackgroundGovernment Social Mobility PolicyOver many years successive governments’ policies addressed specific issues such as child poverty, and unemployment. The focus is now on provision of opportunity so that all people have the chance to realise their aspirations and to maximise their potential without being held back by their starting position in life. In April 2011 the coalition government launched Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility. Arguably this mainly brought together existing policies and initiatives under a “social mobility” banner. It did, however, formalise the change of government dialogue from poverty-reduction to social mobility (or “fair society”):

“This is a socially radical Coalition. Our social radicalism is evident in our decision to make social mobility the principal goal for our social policies; to create a more open society, where we loosen the links between the lottery of birth and chances in life.” 2

Government strategy links social and economic policies: “The lack of social mobility is damaging for individuals. It also leaves the country’s economic potential unfulfilled.” It aims for the jobs market to be “fair all the way up to the very top”, with success based on what you do, not who you know. It further states that a large number of the professions “…remain dominated by a small section of society” and that, “Employers, and in particular the professions, must play their part in opening up opportunities.”

Engineering and the Economy The UK’s economic performance is greater than its population and natural resources suggest3,4. Engineering makes a significant contribution to the UK’s wealth and policy-makers and the general public alike readily acknowledge that engineering ingenuity underpins the supply of energy, transport telecommunications, clean water and food. Less well known is the role it plays in public health, banking and the service sector, particularly through innovation in the technologies that underpin service activities5.

The social and practical benefits of engineering are delivered largely through business mechanisms, or in vital areas such as public health and defence. Whatever market mechanisms apply, and in common with other professions, engineering depends on the talented people it attracts.

The engineering profession is concerned with inspiring, recruiting, guiding and supporting the best engineering talent regardless of social background, ethnicity, gender, disability or any other characteristic of the individual.

Engineering and Social Mobility The world economy is increasingly competitive, diverse and interlinked. To succeed in this new and uncertain era the UK must use its available talent from wherever in society it originates. Fair access and improving diversity within engineering, separate but closely allied, contribute to social mobility and are important to the engineering profession.

Engineers are skilled people who harness science, mathematics and technology skills to create and innovate. Their skills are of immense value as they underpin an increasingly diverse range of sectors with international reach; they enable the UK to meet policy challenges through technical measures; and the skills confer economic value on those who hold them.

By 2011, only 20% of the workforce will be white, able bodied men under 45 years old6. This group has been the traditional source of engineers, so in order for the UK to maintain a skilled workforce, the engineering community must attract engineers from different backgrounds such as:

A Strategy for Social Mobility

No one should be prevented from fulfilling their potential by the circumstances of their birth. What ought to count is how hard you work and the skills and talents you possess, not the school you went to or the jobs your parents did.

Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility

5 Hidden Wealth: The contribution of science to service sector innovation (The Royal Society Science Policy Centre, July 2009)

6 See, for example, Everyday innovation: How to enhance innovative working in employees and organisations; F Patterson, M Kerrin, G Gatto-Roissard, P Coan; NESTA, Research report: December 2009

2 Opening Doors,Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility; Update on progress since April 2011; May 2012; HM Government

3 The Global Competitiveness Index 2010–2011; World Economic Forum

4 www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/populations/ctypopls.htm



l Women: who now form over 45% of the UK labour market7 (note that 68% of women with young children are in the labour market);

l Ethnic minorities: although only accounting for 8% of the UK population, 80% of the ethnic minority population is aged 16 to 35; and

l Disabled people: around 18% of the working population have a disability.

Whether at the macro scale, across national boundaries, or the micro scale, within local communities, the ability to respond to varied customer needs, practical and cultural, is increasingly important to business and service delivery. Diverse workforces better understand and respond to the needs of a wide range of customers, and better interact with a broad client base. There is also growing evidence that increased workforce diversity leads to greater creativity and innovation8.

The supply of engineering talent There is growing concern about the availability of people in the UK with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills and so there is an immediate and practical need to attract talent from all sections of society to help meet demand. To do this engineering businesses must look beyond their traditional recruitment sources, offer more varied and flexible routes into engineering and maintain professional standards. Qualifications with labour market value will tend to improve social mobility as it is measured through changes in earnings and occupational group. Engineering skills are valued in the labour market value – in traditional engineering industries and across the wider economy. Hence meeting the demand for qualified engineers will provide businesses with the skilled people needed for success while also contributing to social mobility.

The Engineering ProfessionThere are a combined total of around 227,500 Chartered Engineers, Incorporated Engineers and Engineering Technicians9 registered with the Engineering Council through the licensed Professional Engineering Institutions. These institutions serve the discipline-specific interests of engineers, the engineering profession, engineering businesses and the UK in general. Working alongside them are organisations that provide broader and inter-disciplinary benefits to the profession such as the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Council and EngineeringUK.

Central to this arrangement is a common approach to professional registration. Registration requires an individual to meet and subscribe to the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC) which describes the competence and commitment to the profession necessary for registration. In this way the profession sets industry-relevant standards for entry to and continuation within the profession and for the processes through which the standards are applied. Engineering has a long tradition of facilitating access from non-traditional backgrounds and from all regions of the UK. It is a profession in which it is possible to progress through a wide variety of Higher, Further and vocational education routes. Registration as a professional is accessible to all and focusses on demanding levels of competence and commitment rather than qualifications per se.

7 Jobs and growth: the importance of engineering skills to the UK economy; RAEng; 2012

8 Social Mobilty, A Literature Review; BIS; 2011

The profession

[The profession] “…must look beyond the traditional sections of society from which engineers come and offer more varied and flexible routes into engineering while maintaining standards of competence and commitment.”

9 Chartered Engineers, Incorporated Engineers and Engineering Technicians all require high standards of competence and commitment. In this report references to professional engineers refers to all three categories of the professional register.


Raising Aspirations and Providing OpportunitiesFair Access EscalatorEngineering has a longstanding emphasis on education and training policy and on “outreach” to young people to raise their aspirations and to provide opportunities for them to see and experience engineering. The professional institutions increasingly work together and created Education for Engineering (E4E) through which the Profession informs and advises government on policy issues related to education and skills matters and provides opportunity to share thinking and approaches to education “outreach”. E4E’s member organisations are independent and act according to their individual strategic aims which, in the case of the institutions, are aligned to their members’ discipline specific interests. Increasingly, however, and of their own volition they speak and act collaboratively. Taken as a whole their various activities demonstrate a consensus around the following broad areas which we can consider as the Engineering Profession’s Fair Access Escalator:

Parallels can be seen between the Fair Access Escalator and the “life cycle approach” to social mobility in the government’s strategy which refers to,

“…certain commonly recognised critical points affecting how socially mobile an individual will be throughout their

life: early years of development; how ready they are for school at age 5; GCSE attainment; their choice of options

at 16; whether they gain a place at university or on an apprenticeship; whether they get into, and how they

progress within, the labour market.”

The government represents these in four lifecycle phases; Foundation Years, School Years, Transition Years and Adulthood. In each of these phases engineering can help improve people’s prospects of seeing, understanding, working towards and joining the profession. They align well with the Fair Access Escalator as shown at Figure 1.

STANDARDS Setting industry-relevant entry standards

ACCESS Operating fair and flexible entry processes

COMMUNICATION Informing people about engineering opportunities

EDUCATIONFostering relevant learning experiences for young people

MOTIVATION Sparking young people’s interest

Fair Access Escalator

Foundation years (Aged up to 5)

School years (Aged 5 to 19)

Motivation Spark interest among young people

Education Foster relevant learning among young people

Communication Inform people about engineering opportunities

Access Operate fair and flexible entry systems

Standards Set industry-relevant entry standards

Transition years (Aged 19 to 24)

Adulthood (Aged 24+)

Figure 1: Fair Access Escalator showing government social mobility lifecycle phases



Each area of the Fair Access Escalator is summarised below.

The Engineering Council publishes the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence, UK-SPEC on behalf of the UK engineering profession. The engineering institutions along with engineering sector and industry representatives constitute the Engineering Council governance. UK-SPEC describes the requirements that have to be met for registration as either Chartered or Incorporated Engineer or Engineering Technician and gives examples of ways of doing this. Registration is open to anyone who can demonstrate competence to perform professional work to the required standard and commitment to the profession’s ethical requirements.

Applicants for registration have to present evidence of their training and experience and are assessed against UK-SPEC, adapted to relate to the applicant’s particular discipline. Assessment is via a Professional Review process carried out by trained, practising professionals.

Knowledge and understanding are important components of professional competence as articulated in UK-SPEC and formal education leading to recognised national qualifications is the most common way of demonstrating these. Qualifications are highlighted to exemplify the knowledge and understanding required for each section of the Standard. In each case however, equally valid alternatives are identified; these include work-based learning and/or experiential learning pathways. In this way the profession sets high standards but is flexible about how applicants can achieve them.

The profession actively promotes such “non-standard” routes to registration by, for example;

l Working with employers and education institutions to accredit and approve qualifications, qualification combinations and training programmes (including apprenticeship programmes). This simultaneously raises aspirations and provides opportunities to register.

l Developing methods of recognising the qualifications, training and experience provided by major employers such as the armed forces.

Engineering institutions actively promote all sections of the Standard through close links with employers. By working closely with engineering companies, institutions create an environment in which engineers are:

l Made aware of registration standards and processes;

l Encouraged to register;

l Helped to demonstrate their competence (or identify how to attain the required competence level).

The profession also provides information about engineering and its career pathways to young people, parents and teachers. This material is available on-line and is printed for distribution to schools, sixth form colleges, FE colleges and HE institutions directly and through third parties. A recent initiative seeks to reduce duplication in the material provided, to collaborate on distribution and to actively review and adjust the material provided according to feedback from target communities. When creating the joint material, the needs of groups under-represented in engineering were identified and taken into account so that those using the material can select that most relevant to the audience; see Case Study 2, Co-ordinated Careers Information.

Standards

Setting industry-relevant entry standards

Access

Operating fair and flexible entry processes

Communication

Informing people about engineering opportunities


The profession contributes to national and regional education policy development via E4E and through its member organisations individually, through consultation inputs and responses, reports, research and policy briefings. Practical action is taken to contribute to the curriculum development for engineering and its enabling subjects; see for example Case Study 5, Vocational Pathways in Schools.

Activities to help teachers better understand the links between their subjects and engineering are provided in the form of, for example, teaching materials that help teachers add engineering context and interest in maths and the sciences. A considerable number of high quality initiatives are undertaken that provide theoretical and practical engineering activities for young people, often but not always, linked to the national curriculum. Engineering institutions, either independently or in partnership, also support and contribute financially to a range of high quality independent initiatives that provide engineering education experiences for young people and their influencers.

Initiatives such as these help develop the tenacity, creativity team-working and communication skills (sometimes referred to as “soft skills”) that are needed by all engineering professionals in addition to their technical skill or academic achievements.

Fair access starts young. The profession works extensively to spark and maintain young people’s interest in engineering and to influence their influencers – parents and teachers in particular. Included in this are initiatives to specifically “target” groups that are under-represented in engineering; see for example Case Study 4, London Engineering Project.

Efforts have been made to better understand the best age in which to start curriculum enrichment and careers information activities10 and are being used to understand the impact of various intervention methods through, for example, the Tomorrow’s Engineers project (www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk). Increasingly engineering is being promoted “in the round” to young people aged up to 16 years, after which specific engineering disciplines are highlighted to inform decisions about further study and/or career pathways.

Links between the engineering community’s work in this area and that of the mathematics, science and technology communities are vital and cultivated through bodies such as SCORE representing the science community and ACME representing mathematics along with many other organisations and learned societies. These subjects have significantly higher in-school profile and are enabling subjects for engineering study, training and careers.

10 See, for example, WHEN STEM: A question of age; Institution of Mechanical Engineers; 2009

Education

Fostering relevant learning experiences for young people

Motivation

Sparking young people’s interest



Case StudiesThe following case studies illustrate in more detail activities undertaken by the profession that have the effect of increasing fair access to the profession and, therefore, to social mobility. The case studies highlighted are as follows:

1. Student access to qualifications

2. Co-ordinated careers information

3. The Big Bang Fair

4. Role models

5. Engaging under-represented groups

6. Supporting vocational pathways in schools and colleges

7. Access to civil engineering careers via the Apprenticeship route

8. Engineering Council’s Engineering Gateways

9. The engineering profession diversity programme

10. Ladders to progression and to the profession

11. Broad commitment to fair access

12. Support for women engineers


Case Study 1: Student access to qualificationsAccess to engineering careers is influenced by the opportunities young people have to study the subjects required for an engineering career as well as by their motivation and ability. E4E is working on a project that will help us better understand the balance struck between opportunity and ability in the supply of young people into engineering careers and the profession.

This is important, as any restriction of opportunity (i.e. lack of access to the subjects needed to successfully pursue an engineering career) tightens supply and acts as a handbrake on the move towards an increasingly diverse engineering profession. This directly impacts the social mobility agenda.

E4E is undertaking analysis of the National Pupil Database, the Department for Education’s official data on pupils in England to investigate the diversity profile of children studying and achieving STEM relevant qualifications at age 16. The study concentrates on the subject combinations that provide the basis for progression leading to engineering qualification at higher levels. The data is also being analysed by pupil characteristics such as socio-economic circumstances, gender and ethnicity and also regional variations and differences by school type.

In August 2012 E4E published its first report11 on this issue. The report provides a snapshot of the potential pool from which the economy can draw its Science, Engineering and Technology future workforce. It indicates that a significant proportion of young people in England are not attaining good enough grades in the necessary qualifications to enable progression to science, engineering and technology careers – a question of ability. Importantly, however, it also provides strong evidence to suggest that many pupils across England are not even being given the chance to achieve their full potential in science subjects. Given that participation and success in Triple Science GCSEs is an indicator of future attainment in science subjects12, the research shows that young people’s potential to progress in Science, Engineering and Technology is heavily determined by opportunity.

The national data shows only 50% of pupils in England achieve 2 science qualifications at grades A*–C along with Maths A*–C at Key Stage 4, while 39% of pupils failed to achieve an A*–C grade in Mathematics. The study also shows significant variation across the regions of England. There are many areas across the country where there is significant industrial presence, yet high proportions of pupils are not being given the opportunity to achieve their full potential in sciences. The research highlighted for example that in four local authorities over a quarter of pupils were not entered for any science qualification. There is also evidence that participation in triple science tends to be in the more affluent southern regions of the country.

The findings, based on these requirements, give cause for concern for the future supply of people in science, engineering and technology roles and for the socio-economic spread of young people able to access the engineering profession. Further reports will add detail to this by specifically addressing opportunity and ability according to diversity profiles, including student’s socio-economic circumstances.

11 Opportunity or Ability? Key Stage 4 science and mathematics participation and attainment in England 2010; E4E; August 2012

12 Maths and science education: the supply of high achievers at A level; Research report 079; Department for Education

“Young people’s potential to progress in Science, Engineering and Technology is

heavily determined by opportunity.”



Case study 2: Co-ordinated careers informationIn Unleashing Aspiration the government identified six key areas for improvement, including:

l Raising aspirations: new opportunities for young people to learn about the professions

l Schools: new opportunities to learn and choose careers

Young people from less advantaged backgrounds do not necessarily lack aspiration13. However, without the right information to help them make choices about interests, study and careers at the right stages of their lives their choices are limited. The engineering profession, through its constituent bodies, supplements general careers information advice and guidance (CIAG) with carefully thought through careers materials. These materials are provided on-line for universal availability14 and in print to provide for those without internet access.

Through E4E the profession agreed to promote “engineering in the round” rather than individual disciplines to young people up to the age of 16 years15. EngineeringUK initiated a project to bring professional engineering institutions together to create and distribute CIAG that addresses young people’s needs and reaches them through channels they and their influencers use. The project team, comprising EngineeringUK, the IET, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Physics and recently the Institution of Civil Engineers, focuses its efforts on printed and on-line engineering careers resources for young people aged between 9–16 and their teachers.

In spring 2012 the project group launched an initial range of careers materials for print and on-line distribution. The messaging and approach for these resources is determined by a series of ‘audience

13 The influence of parents, places and poverty on educational attitudes and aspirations; R. St Clair, K. Kintrea and M. Houston, College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow ; Joseph Rowntree Foundation; October 2011

14 This illustrates one of the potential Social Mobility benefits of widely available broadband internet services.

15 Note that some organisations that promote engineering careers are established to serve and promote one or more specific industry sector. As they offer careers materials related to those sectors and which relates to many non-engineering professions, they are not constrained by this approach.


frameworks’ produced by the group. These frameworks draw on relevant recent research and best practice case studies gathered from a range of careers and professions. They provide clear evidence-based insight into what information young people and their teachers seek and how best the engineering profession can meet those information needs. This takes account of issues such as gender and locality and addresses questions that a wide range of young people ask.

The resulting materials comprise simple and flexible resources such as postcards, posters incorporating case studies for use in a variety of situations and are adaptable to suit younger and older students. These ‘call to action’ resources intrigue and encourage young people and teachers to seek out additional information about engineering, additional material provided on-line through the Tomorrow’s Engineers website.

Effective distribution is central to the project. Initially the resources are being provided through STEM enhancement & enrichment activities with wide appeal and both in and out of school. This includes networks such as The Big Bang, the National STEM Centre, National Science and Engineering Week and STEM Ambassadors. Through Tomorrow’s Engineers the materials are being distributed in partnership with funded enhancement and enrichment schemes. Importantly, the materials are being packaged to suit:

l Teachers engaging class groups in careers work

l Engineers visiting schools and other groups

l Distribution at careers fairs and similar events

Initial materials are more suited to young people of secondary school age. The next stage of the project will provide resources for primary school aged children and their teachers. In the longer term the project will consider how to extend resources and messages to new audiences.

Resources promote the message rather than the messenger and so use Tomorrow’s Engineers branding, carrying minimal project partner branding. Partners ‘committed to reduce or eliminate their own pre-16 careers materials and re-target existing careers resource annual budgets to the project. This demonstrates their commitment to joint-working and helps ensure that funding continues and allows additional provision over time.

Evaluation of the resources and distribution is embedded in the project and will draw on existing EngineeringUK measures, such as the brand monitor, The Big Bang and Tomorrow’s Engineers evaluations and recent and new research with teachers in addition to an independent evaluation of the engineering careers resources that are produced. This will include a consideration of geographical spread and impact on different socio-economic groups.

Unleashing Aspiration recommendation 25:

Schools, colleges and professions should work in partnership to produce career prospectuses and online information sources aimed at parents. Information could include routes into different professions and the remuneration and costs involved.

The Tomorrow’s Engineers programme shows how the Engineering Profession is working hard at making simple, coordinated careers information aimed at students, teachers and parents. The information includes the multiple pathways for progression in engineering careers.

Resources

Printed and on-line engineering careers resources for young people aged between 9–16 and their teachers from EngineeringUK, the IET, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Physics and the Institution of Civil Engineers.



Case Study 3: The Big Bang FairThe Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair, led by EngineeringUK, began life in pilot form in 2009 attracting 6,500 visitors. Since then the Fair, has grown into the UK’s largest youth event, with 65,000+ visitors to this year’s Fair at London’s ExCeL. The Fair brings together the efforts of almost 200 organisations working together to enable young people to see science and engineering in a new light and encourage young people to consider careers in our sectors.

EngineeringUK undertakes substantial analysis of attendees to the Big Bang Fair so as to quantify and enable the setting of targets and key performance indicators for future events. Current measures look at the number of girls participating –at around 54% in 2013 and also examine the geographic spread of attendees. This second measure is particularly useful as it can be combined with the HEFCE POLAR (Participation of Local Areas) classification of small areas across the UK. With POLAR, each geographical region is classified according to how likely young people in that are to participate in higher education. The classification comprises five quintiles ordered from 1 (lowest participation) to 5 (highest participation).

The importance of this classification is that the data can also be mapped to IDACI – the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. This measure, undertaken by Government, measures the proportion of children in a local area that live in low income households. EngineeringUK can use their knowledge of the geographic spread of attendees to see if they are attracting visitors from socially deprived regions with historically low participation in higher education. Where there is low participation, they can put in additional measures to attract schools in these areas in the future.

The Big Bang UK Fair is now so large there are only a few venues big enough to hold the event. To ensure the further spread of the messaging around engineering careers, and to reach geographic areas which are too far for schools to travel to the major exhibition centres in London and Birmingham, EngineeringUK has established regional Big Bang Fairs: The Big Bang Near Me. In 2012 there were 13 large regional fairs and in parallel there has been the development of a series of local events in schools and FE colleges using local employers in order to ensure that every school has an opportunity to engage if they wish to. These have attracted over 32,500 attendees already and are set to grow again this year.




Case study 4: Role modelsHelping young people make the connection between their personal situation, their aspirations, their abilities and the opportunities available is a key part of further opening up the professions. Role models play an important part in helping young people see themselves as future professionals as is recognised by the recommendation in Fair Access to Professional Careers that, “The professions and the Government should organise a ‘Yes you can’ campaign, headed by inspirational role models, to encourage more young people to aspire to a professional career.”

Similarly, roles models can play a valuable part in helping children see, understand and appreciate the value of engineering careers. For girls in particular, a close personal connection with role models is an essential part of their engagement with STEM16. Not surprisingly then, the engineering profession takes seriously the need to encourage engineers to act as role models and to support them when they do.

The professional engineering institutions work with STEMNET to encourage their members to enrol as STEMNET Ambassadors17 through which they gain access to induction training and information about opportunities to promote STEM careers and undergo Criminal Record Bureau Checks. Many institutions and engineering employers go further by managing their own “enhanced” Ambassador programme linking to their own strategic aims and the interests of their members and staff. This involves, for example, engineers being provided with materials that help them promote engineering with a particular emphasis on the sustainability agenda, engineering for sport, a local industry sector or other relevant topic. In the same way engineers are provided with opportunities to work in partnership with specific third party enhancement and engagement projects (e.g. Greenpower, Primary Engineer, Bloodhound SSC and the Engineering Development Trust), often involving a funding arrangement between the institution or employer and the third party.

By engaging with young people in these ways, practising engineers provide engineering careers information and share their personal stories and interests. These role models are at least as important as high profile “celebrity” role models as they represent a balance between aspiration and real-world possibility. Given that engineers are located throughout the UK18 so too are engineer Ambassadors. This helps provide a broad distribution of Ambassadors around the UK, including in areas that experience greater population diversity or greater socio-economic disadvantage.

In addition to working with STEMNET, the engineering profession has been working closely with the Employers and Education Taskforce Inspiring the Future scheme and with the Speakers for Schools initiative established by BBC Business Editor Robert Peston. These two schemes are important for the Engineering Profession’s commitment to social mobility as they are specifically aimed at state maintained schools which do not have the network capital of independent sector schools.

In collaboration with these two programmes the Engineering Profession is launching a coordinated week of ‘Inspiring Engineering Speakers’ in schools across England in March 2013. Many eminent engineers who have signed up for the Speakers for Schools programme include Sir John Parker, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and immediate Past President Lord Browne of Madingley. This initiative is akin to the ‘Yes you can’ campaign suggested in the Unleashing Aspirations report.

In addition to inspirational careers talks and role model interventions, the Engineering Profession also has in place longer term mentoring schemes for students considering careers in engineering. For example, the Royal Academy of Engineering is funded by BP for a three year programme to run an e-mentoring scheme targeted at students on vocational engineering courses in Further Education colleges. The scheme links practicing engineers with the students to provide careers guidance and support with subject knowledge.

Sir John Parker, President, Royal

Academy of Engineering speaking

at St. Saviour’s and St. Olave’s school,

Southwark.

16 WHEN STEM: A question of age; Institution of Mechanical Engineers; 2009

17 STEMNET monitors the diversity profile of their registered Ambassadors.

18 Annual Business Inquiry 2008, ONS (cited by Semta in AACS LMI (Version 4.0) March 2011; Engineering Manufacture, Science and Mathematics)


Unleashing Aspiration:

Recommendation 4:

The professions and the Government should together introduce a national scheme for career mentoring by young professionals and university students of school pupils in Years 9 to13. The national mentoring scheme should involve partnerships with employers, voluntary organisations, universities and schools.

Recommendation 5:

The professions and the Government should organise a ‘Yes you can’ campaign, headed by inspirational role models, to encourage more young people to aspire to a professional career.

Recommendation 6:

The Government, working with the professions and universities, should develop a national database of people willing to act as role models or mentors for young people in their former schools.

Recommendation 9:

Each profession should recruit and support a network of young professional ambassadors who would work with schools to raise awareness of career opportunities for young people. Professional bodies should recognise, as continuous professional development, the contribution of young professionals who volunteer their time.

The initiatives presented above highlight the deep commitment the engineering profession has towards role models and mentors to widen participation and enthuse and encourage young people into the sector.



Case study 5: Engaging under-represented groupsIn the summer of 2005 HEFCE awarded a consortium of partners £2.82m to launch the London Engineering Project (LEP). The Project was a determined attempt to widen participation in engineering higher education.

It was also a pilot project to bring a partnership of national organisations and some 50 London schools together to get more women, more black and minority ethnic (BME) students and more students from families with no previous experience in HE to opt for engineering degree courses. People from these groups are among the most under-represented in engineering higher education.

The Project produced 20,000 student contact days in the London Boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham, Tower Hamlets and Newham. These include wards that are amongst the most deprived in England and where participation rates in higher education are amongst the lowest. The approach was to provide inspiring outreach activities in schools and attractive, relevant engineering courses in local universities and to populate these degree programmes with students from inner London schools and FE colleges. New organisational tools were developed for the Project and 12 full-time and part-time fieldworkers were employed by 7 of the partner organisations.

Tools developed and implemented include:

l A process to drive equality and inclusion into every aspect of the project and become a model of best practice

l Both qualitative and quantitative measures for impact evaluation

l A coordinated system for event planning and administration

l A set of service level agreements linking scorecard performance metrics to financial support

These provided an efficient platform from which a complex set of Project activities could be delivered, including:

l STEM project days in primary schools

l After school science and engineering clubs in primary and secondary schools

l STEM learning days in secondary schools

l Taster events in secondary schools

l Role models and engineering ambassadors in schools

l E-mentoring

l Residential courses in engineering

l Engineering summer schools

l Science and engineering competitions

Working with engineering departments in three London universities the project concentrated on:

Managing the transition from school or college through university and into employment for students from under-represented groups. This was sought through:

l An engineering outreach programme into local schools

l The development of a transitions to higher education checklist offering practical advice to departments and courses in the faculty

l The development of a Foundation Degree in Engineering Infrastructure as a ladder into engineering higher education

London Engineering Project: Pilot Project Partners

The Royal Academy of Engineering

London South Bank University

Aspire Aimhigher South East London

Cambridge-MIT Institute

EDF Energy

HEFCE

RWE Thames Water

STEMNET

STEM Centre for London

The British Science Association

The Brightside Trust

The Engineering Development Trust

The Engineering Professors’ Council

The Higher Education Subject Centre

The Office of Science and Technology

The Smallpeice Trust

The UK Resource Centre for Women in SET (UKRC)

University College London

University of Liverpool

University of Sussex

Young Engineers


Developing a new 3-year degree course, Engineering for Society, to fuse engineering with developmental and environmental studies. The course attracted twice as many applications from women than more traditional engineering courses.

Enhancing existing courses for students; a number of new project strands were developed, including:

l A team-based learning project which has paid dividends in terms of student experience and learning outcomes

l A revised method for supporting first year students in developing the required mathematical skills

l Weblabs as a means of building student engagement with practical elements of the course

The project concluded in 2009 leaving a legacy among South and East London schools which now have engineering embedded into their teaching. Evidence of the Project’s influence is seen in Southwark’s early commitment to the 14–19 Engineering Diploma programme and, subsequently it being the site of a University Technical College.


Recommendation 10:

All schools should work with businesses and professions to promote and support professionally led outreach at late primary and early secondary age.

Recommendation 39:

Each profession should develop partnership compact arrangements with university faculties. These arrangements might include linking up recent professional entrants as personal mentors with young people in schools, and issuing guidance about the profession and how to get into it. (See recommendations 4, 9 and 12)

The London Engineering Project is just one example of how the Profession is working with schools and businesses to promote and support professionally led outreach at late primary and early secondary age. Also through the London Engineering Project, university undergraduates were used as mentors for pupils in the schools, providing informal guidance and personal insights. This also happens through the STEMNET ambassador scheme presented in case study 3.



Case study 6: Supporting vocational pathways in schools and collegesPupils from disadvantaged areas are ten times more likely to take a vocational qualification than their counterparts in affluent areas and are much less likely to take individual academic subjects19. In recent years the Profession has supported in-school vocational pathways. By so doing it adds educational value and “respectability” to these qualifications so that:

l Negative perceptions of vocational qualifications are discouraged;

l Young people undertaking them have a high quality route to engineering careers, whether this is directly into work or via Further Education or Higher Education; and

l Those taking vocational qualifications see that effort and performance can give access to routes into professional engineering, including through HE.

The Profession’s support for vocational pathways takes many forms. Here we highlight the some of the work done in respect of vocational pathways in schools.

14–19 Engineering Diplomas

The 14–19 Engineering Diploma received exceptional employer and professional engineering community engagement and was recognised as providing an authentic engineering experience for pupils taught in real-world settings, stimulating their motivation to learn. Part of the rationale behind the Diploma programme was that they would help widen participation in engineering education. Experience suggests that they raised the aspirations of young people who, without them, would not have realised their own potential, achieved a qualification valued by Higher Education or seen a pathway for them into University. The Profession supported the Engineering Diploma and provided practical help during its development, introduction and operation through, for example:

l Membership of the Engineering Diploma Development Partnership

l Helping schools, colleges & consortia partnerships link to employers who could contribute to the learning experiences of students

l Encouraging institution members to offer support to local schools in the delivery of the Engineering Diplomas

l Providing examples of how curriculum science and mathematics are applied in professional practice

l Providing structured Continuing Professional Development opportunities for teachers

Of particular note was the work done by the Engineering Professors Council to develop the Mathematics for Engineering qualification offered by OCR as part of a student’s Additional and Specialised Learning and work by the Royal Academy of Engineering which led a successful bid to create a consortium in London, linked to the London Engineering Project.

Commitment to the Engineering Diploma was such that when government support for the Diploma Development Partnerships was withdrawn the National Committee for 14–19 Engineering Education was convened to retain a community of the core participants involved in the development of the Diploma. This committee, convened by the Royal Academy of Engineering comprises 65 members from 51 organisations including engineering employers, universities, FE Colleges and training providers, sector skills councils, professional engineering institutions, learned mathematical societies and organisations that promote STEM subjects in schools.

University Technical Colleges

The Profession is backing University Technical Colleges, as championed by Lord Baker of Dorking through the Baker Dearing Trust. These 14–19 schools will provide an engineering / technical education, providing young people with the opportunity to progress into apprenticeships, the workplace or continue to Higher Education Lord Baker himself identified UTCs as being “agents of social mobility: more than 23 per cent of the students at the Black Country UTC in Walsall have free school meals (at today’s grammar schools the figure is less than 2 per cent) and some of these students will go on to university.”

The Royal Academy of Engineering has been at the centre of curriculum developments in the University Technical Colleges undertaking work to identify respected vocational qualifications for use in UTCs20. A number of engineering institutions are working closely with UTCs to provide input into the curriculum and, in particular, the curriculum enrichment that the schools provide. The JCB Academy, for example, names the IET and the Royal Academy of Engineering as “Core Challenge Partners”.

19 See: www.ucas.com/he_staff/quals/englishbac 20 Respected: Technical qualifications selected for use in University Technical Colleges; Report by the Royal Academy of Engineering for The Edge Foundation; 2011


Recommendation 68:

Each profession should work with the National Apprenticeship Service and the relevant Sector Skills Councils to establish clear progression routes from vocational training into the professions, and ensure that learners are aware of these routes.

Recommendation 69:

The Government and the professions should provide a repository of best practice setting out practical ways in which vocational routes can be expanded into the professions.This case study demonstrates the engineering profession’s commitment to vocational education as one of the many well signposted pathways to professional engineering careers up to Chartered Engineer status.


Case study 7: Access to civil engineering careers via the Apprenticeship routeThis on-going project draws on the experiences of Technician Consortium members to investigate whether apprenticeship recruitment is an effective way of enabling non-standard entrants to the professions to access civil engineering careers. Running between April 2012 and March 2013, it focusses on a combination of factors around socio-economic status, gender and ethnicity. The project, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, is jointly managed by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and Mott MacDonald.

Within the overarching aim there are several objectives:

l To describe the background, expectations and experiences of the apprentices and identify changing career perceptions as they progress

l To derive comparative data regarding socio-economic factors, gender and ethnicity

l To describe the cultural change processes within the ICE and the members of the employer consortium that have resulted from the development of the apprenticeships

l To identify the bureaucratic, cross-institutional and cross-partnership barriers to developing suitable apprenticeship provision

l To describe a partnership model involving employers, a PEI, an F/HE provider and the NAS that might be replicated or adapted across the UK

l To track a cohort of apprentices over an 18 month to 2 year period to the completion of the apprenticeship

l To develop an understanding of perceptions and barriers to apprenticeships across schools and industry and how this might be addressed

The project includes action research and targeted interventions in schools and will produce a final report. The project considers issues such as:

Young people’s perceptions, expectations and aspirations

l Perceptions of key influencers e.g. teachers and parents

l Access to schools

l Recruitment process

l Employer attitudes, systems and support structures

l Availability of provision

l Professional body support for and recognition of technician engineers

Through action research the project will investigate the expectations and aspirations of apprentices at various stages in their progress, the cultural context of schools, employers and professional institutions and the barriers to making change. This involves a mix of focus groups, questionnaires and 1 to 1 discussions with schools (staff and students), existing apprentices, companies (including line managers and mentors) and professional institutions.

Through targeted interventions the project will work with:

l Schools to develop an equality & diversity ‘business case’ for schools to promote apprenticeships, to examine how best to raise student awareness through intervention activities and the impact of these on student perceptions and aspirations.

l Employers on recruitment processes and a systematic approach to technician apprentice recruitment & training which is embedded within company HR and Learning & Development policies and processes

l Professional bodies on the status and visibility of technicians, the professional review process and how best to promote work based progression pathways

The final report will include a partnership model which can be replicated and/or adapted across UK, an impact assessment / evaluation report, case studies and recommendations for further action.


Recommendation 71:

The professions should consider how to introduce Apprenticeship schemes as part of their reviews of fair access processes in recommendation 66.

The Engineering Profession has been a long-time supporter of Apprenticeship schemes as a pathway for progression. High quality, long duration Apprenticeships in engineering can lead directly to registration as EngTech for the individual.

Project Partners:

Institution of Civil Engineers

Mott MacDonald

National Apprenticeship Service

Transport for London

Engineering Council

Peter Brett Associates

Tony Gee & Partners

Construction Industry Council

City College, Southampton

Construction Youth Trust

Specialist School & Academies Trust

Hoile Associates Ltd



Case study 8: Engineering Council’s Engineering GatewaysThe Engineering Gateways programme serves groups that are under-represented in the engineering profession and will help to address the shortage of engineers and increase retention within the profession.

It provides a pathway to professional qualification as an Incorporated Engineer (IEng) or a Chartered Engineer (CEng) for working engineers without the full exemplifying academic qualifications, who are interested in becoming professionally qualified but who are unable to commit to full-time study. Successful completion of the programme leads to the award of either a Bachelors or Masters Professional Engineering Degree by the involved university and also confers eligibility to apply for a Professional Review Interview for professional registration (UK-SPEC) through a participating Professional Engineering Institution.

Key to the programme is that it provides a flexible work-based learning ‘escalator’ that allows progression to professional registration without the need to leave work, minimising the level of debt incurred (typical base cost of around £3,600 per year) and at the same time maximising employment and earnings prospects. These are important factors for widening access to the profession, particularly given the recent increases in undergraduate student tuition fees (up to £9,000 per year).

The framework was developed as part of a government-funded initiative ‘Gateways to the Professions’. The Engineering Council led the work which also involved universities and employer representatives. Professional Engineering Institutions are crucial in helping students meet their professional aspirations and in approving the learning that is undertaken.

Progression in the labour market of low earners is an indicator of social mobility. A key driver for this is, “…

routes to progression from low-wage jobs e.g. the availability of promotion opportunities and ‘second

chances’ to gain new skills or qualifications.www.dpm.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/progression-labour-market-low-earners

Entry requirements for the programmes are set by the involved university and are usually at Foundation Degree level for Bachelors and degree level for the Masters; however, other relevant professional qualifications, academic achievements and experience are considered. Candidates work with an academic supervisor and a mentor to complete a professional development audit (PDA). This PDA is a reflective examination and assessment of the individual’s education, qualifications, experience and competences upon enrolment. This is then used to determine:

l The difference between current competences and those of UK-SPEC

l The scope of their learning contract or other equivalent document

l How the individual intends to meet the required competences

The first BEng Professional Engineering (Power Systems) programme, leading towards IEng registration, was successfully piloted by Aston University. The first cohort consisted of 12 students from the UK’s power supply industry, who had all previously successfully completed a Foundation Degree or equivalent. This programme proved so popular that places were oversubscribed, but firm offers have now been made to 25 applicants from a wider range of employers and backgrounds to start this month.

An increasing number of employers are also realising the benefits of the work-based degree programmes. Those with employees enrolled on engineering gateways type pathways has now grown to over 50, with a wide range of size, type and geographic spread. Approximately 90% of engineers in the UK work in businesses with 9 or fewer employees and a turnover of under £2 million21. They are therefore less able than those working in larger companies to be released or funded for additional study, hence the Gateways programme benefits engineering in particular.

21 EngineeringUK 2011

Professional Engineering Institutions involved in Engineering Gateways:

IET

Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Royal Aeronautical Society

British Computer Society

Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers

Energy Institute

Institution of Civil Engineers

Institution of Chemical Engineers

Institute of Engineering Designers

Institution of Marine Engineers Scientists and Technologists

Institute of Measurement and Control

Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

Institute of Water

Society of Operations Engineers


Case study 9: The engineering profession diversity programmeFrom April 2011 the Royal Academy of Engineering received funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to take the lead role in addressing diversity across the engineering profession. This is in conjunction with the Royal Society which has been charged with a parallel role for the sciences. We know that those from low income backgrounds and disabled people, certain ethnic minorities and women are currently under-represented within Engineering. The Diversity Programme seeks to engage the Professional Engineering Institutions (PEIs), the Royal Society, industry, education and other STEM and diversity organisations, and focuses on 6 key areas:

Diversity strands: Working across 7 diversity strands – with a particular focus on ethnic minority and disabled people, women and those from low income backgrounds

Data: Collating and generating qualitative and quantitative data to understand levels of under-representation and how best to address it

Stakeholder community: Bringing the stakeholder community together to inform the scope and focus of the programme

The engineering brand: Supporting and influencing the way engineering is perceived by diverse groups

Sharing best practice: Developing communications and publications to inform the profession – especially as regards examples of best practice

Internal work: Integrating diversity into our internal processes to to drive our external work and reflect the diversity of the profession

Specific projects being undertaken include:

Proactive membership: This pilot is being run by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) using a best practice example put forward by The Royal Academy of Engineering. The IChemE is creating a Proactive Membership Committee to increase the diversity of chartered chemical engineers. The main role of the committee will be to ensure that IChemE membership better reflects the society within which the IChemE exists.

Qualitative research – Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) and Disadvantaged Socio-economic Background (SEB): This research is being carried out in the knowledge that more evidence is required to effectively address the underrepresentation of BME people and people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds (SEB) - particularly as regards membership of professional institutions and employment. Tracking the representation of people from these backgrounds within institutions is problematic given that few, if any monitor ethnicity or SEB amongst their membership. It is expected that this research will identify evidence to indicate what institutions and employers can do to recruit and retain more people from BME groups and disadvantaged SEBs. One area of enquiry will be the use of focus groups to engage underrepresented groups of interest to develop an increased understanding of barriers to participation, especially as regards employment and institution membership. Another line of enquiry will be through one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders to understand the information they would find useful in increasing representation of BME people and people from disadvantaged SEB in their organisations and membership.



Case study 10: Ladders to progression and to the professionThe Welding Institute (TWI) is an example of an engineering institution that is closely involved in industry and that works to close gaps and develop pathways for the professional development of people interested in welding.

There are few formal learning pathways leading to higher education qualifications in welding engineering. However, there are many examples of professionals in this sector progressing ‘from the tools’ or cross-training into the profession. There are notable examples of highly respected professionals in large multi-national companies who began their careers as craft welders, often undertaking an apprenticeship, but who progressed to gain higher educational qualifications and occupy positions of significant technical and professional responsibility. Hence, TWI has a large number of EngTech registrants.

To help with its members’ professional development TWI created registration routes by peer-reviewing and benchmarking vocational training routes that also meet role-specific competence requirements in industry. In this way people can attain the maximum possible credit from training and certification, this credit being needed for career progression and compliance with industry standards.

TWI recognises the value of harmonised international educational programmes. It commits effort and resources to the further development and recognition of qualifications such as the International Welding Engineer, Technologist and Specialist diplomas (IWE, IWT, IWS) from the International Institute of Welding. They also invested and cooperated with the Open University to create a TWI/OU Foundation Degree (Level 5) in Materials fabrication and Engineering, which recognises the prior learning in the IWT and IWS diplomas with CATS points (90 points out of 240 required). This earns greater return from investment in vocational education and encourages those who were not fortunate enough to previously study in higher education to advance, more than 200 over the past two years. The first award of the Foundation Degree is expected during 2012.

TWI plans to accredit additional learning on top of the Foundation Degree to provide the first direct route to registration as IEng in the profession. They are also working to have the IIW diplomas recognised in the Qualifications and Credit Framework and/or European Qualifications Framework.

A large proportion of registration applications through TWI do not have the qualifications needed to meet the educational requirements for registration: they qualify through a process of individual assessment (the “Individual Route”). TWI has therefore become highly competent at peer reviewing non-accredited qualifications and recognising informal and non-formal learning. They also created an Experiential Route that uses assessment of work-based evidence and personal reflective statements to ensure compliance with UK-SPEC competences. This route to registration is proving both popular and effective in recognising the achievement of professionals who have gained knowledge and skill through informal and non-formal learning.


Recommendation 73:

The professions should work with the Government and others to set out clear progression maps from paraprofessional roles, and ensure that training systems support these routes.

This case study and the case study highlighting the Engineering Gateways programme are two of the many examples showing how the engineering profession demonstrates its commitment to multiple pathways to progression from paraprofessional (technician) roles, with CPD through formal and informal learning towards Incorporated and Chartered Engineer status.


Case study 11: Broad commitment to fair accessTraditionally, the main route into building services engineering has always been through part time study whilst working ‘on the tools’. Many of CIBSE’s past Presidents entered the profession through apprenticeships in the 50s, 60s and 70s, studying to gain vocational qualifications rather than degrees on day release and in the evenings at technical colleges and Polytechnics. And London South Bank university (previously a Poly) remains one of the relatively few institutions in the UK where you can study for a named degree in building services engineering today.

Nowadays, many of those entering the profession with the aim of becoming Chartered are graduates or are studying part time for a degree - typically in electrical, mechanical or environmental engineering or another construction-related discipline. However, CIBSE has always offered alternative routes to registration as a Chartered or Incorporated Engineer, based on an individual’s track record of workplace achievement and learning. And CIBSE ranks 5th out of the 36 Engineering Council institutions for the number of Engineering Technicians it has in membership.

Recently, the Board has established a Diversity Panel chaired by Past President Andy Ford FCIBSE, and adopted a mission statement which encapsulates the Institution’s determination to be ‘open and truly representative…to identify the barriers to entry and find ways of working together to influence behavioural change to remove these barriers… to embed further collaboration, inclusion, fairness and respect’.

One aspect of gender diversity which CIBSE is urgently addressing is the retention of women engineers, both in its membership and the profession as a whole. Females account for up to 20% of the Graduate membership grade, but there is a dramatic decline at more senior levels, indicating substantial drop-out of women in the later stages of professional formation. Is this attributable, at least in part, to unconscious bias in some organisations? For example in failing to create a supportive working environment , or in failing to respect the demands of proper work-life balance? The Linkedin group WiBSE (Women in Building Services Engineering, open to men as well as women) was created in July 2012 to address retention by providing a forum for discussion, debate and the sharing of best practice.

Building Services Engineering (BSE):

BSE belongs to the construction family of engineering specialisms, along with civil, structural and highway engineering. With around 50% of the planet’s total carbon emissions attributable to buildings and the power we use in them, building services engineers are at the forefront of the global fight to tackle climate change.

Personal profile:

David Hughes FCIBSE

David Hughes FCIBSE was state educated and started his career aged 16 as an Apprentice with major design contractor Matthew Hall, obtaining a Higher Diploma in Environmental Engineering from the National College (now LSBU) in 1968. Twenty years later, with an MSc in Architecture from University College London, again by part-time study, he joined consulting engineering practice Jaros Baum & Bolles as a Director. He was responsible for such projects as Paternoster Square, Barclays Bank head office and the refurbishment of the Treasury in Whitehall. Having joined the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) in 1963 he became a Fellow in 1985, a Chartered Engineer in 1989 and President in 2006. Today, David is a Board member of Engineering Council and chairs its Registration Standards Committee.



Case study 12: Support for Women EngineersEstablished in 2011, the IET Women’s Network organises events to facilitate networking and heighten awareness of the barriers to career progression. It is already proving successful in highlighting topics affecting women engineers and in helping them to achieve their career goals.

The Network has dedicated IET web pages and uses social media, particularly Facebook and YouTube, to reach its community. In this way the Network reaches a wider audience through a medium that many, particularly the younger age groups, relate to. The Network plans for the Facebook ‘’My Communities’’ platform to become the heart of the Network, where self-organising groups will collaborate, share ideas, and in turn, promote the benefit of professional membership.

Just under a third of IET women members (excluding students) are professionally registered while half of all members (excluding students) are professionally registered. The IET intends to increase the proportion of women members professionally registered and uses the Network web presence to promote the benefits of professional registration. As part of this project women engineers who are not professionally registered are personally invited to attend professional registration workshops running in their local area. Specific initiatives being arranged through the Network include:

l A Career Magazine feature promoting the Network and showcasing inspirational women IET members and the IET Young Women Engineer Award. Career Magazine is a general sale publication with a readership of millions through a distribution over the course of six months from publication.

l Presence at events that highlight the achievements of women in male dominated fields. The Network has attended Cisco’s Everywoman in Technology Awards and will attend the National Engineering Recruitment Show and similar events to help inspire, support and celebrate the advancement of women in STEM fields. It is intended the Network’s presence will be a regular feature of these events.

l Contact with IET’s non-professionally registered women members to establish what assistance can be provided to increase the proportion of women members who successfully completed their application for professional registration.


What Works?Assessing the impact made on the national situation by any particular individual project or initiative is difficult. In practice progress is made through multiple small steps forward, many of which are interdependent. The progress in attracting women into engineering provides an example. We anticipate that the rate of change will accelerate over time as more women enter the profession and then act as role models for other young women, increasing the flow into the profession by creating a “snowball effect”. At the same time careers materials increasingly showcase engineering in ways that are likely to appeal to girls as well as those that appeal to boys, helping to gradually breakdown stereotypical perceptions of engineering as a male preserve.

So the picture is complex. As we have illustrated, however, progress is being made towards a better understanding how different social groups relate to the engineering profession and the profession relates to them and how to measure the current situation and the progress made. Experience shows, however, that success is achievable. The case studies shows the profession’s commitment to making an impact by sparking motivation, fostering learning, providing information, operating flexible entry systems while maintaining high standards for entry to the profession. Much remains to be done however.

When an initiative is successful it is generally on a relatively small scale. Among the factors that limited the scale of these initiatives are:

l Relevance; what has an impact on one population doesn’t necessarily work for others, even the same underrepresented group in different circumstances can require a different approach (particularly in terms fostering learning and communicating about opportunities);

l Finance: implementing schemes (in schools for example) can cost significant sums.

Importantly employers are engaging in the work the profession is doing. Employers recruit the best available talent from wherever it originates. Many employers in need of engineers invest in the long term change of the talent pool available to them. They do this by encouraging their engineers to become Ambassadors, by linking to and supporting (often financially) enhancement and enrichment initiatives, by creating their own local initiatives with schools and by changing their employment practices to be more welcoming to underrepresented groups.

The case studies, above, illustrate how the profession is committed to making real change with respect to many of the factors that contribute to social mobility, including ethnicity, gender, socio-economic disadvantage etc. Although not specifically illustrated within the case studies it is common for engineering institutions to take small but important initiatives such as to:

l Advertise membership in ways that specifically target underrepresented groups, such as through magazines and websites read predominantly by women, or the black community;

l Specifically target part of their schools outreach work to schools with no record of engineering engagement, girls schools, inner city schools;

l Review the content and language of their materials and resources to ensure that these are appropriate to different audiences.

Experience shows that such actions are welcomed by the groups they are intended to support.

The profession is and has been for many years committed to a system of professional recognition that is open to all, based on competence rather than qualifications, per se. Social Mobility is, however, not the driving issue for the engineering profession; what matters more is that all who have the potential to achieve are empowered to do so and that they have fair access to engineering careers and the profession.

The nature of each profession makes a considerable difference to what they can do to promote fair access. The Civil Service is the profession and the employer, while in medicine membership of the professional institution confers a licence to practice and the state employs most professionals. The different professional arrangements affect the impact that the profession can have. The engineering profession’s link to its members is voluntary and links to employers are informal. This makes choice, collaboration and partnerships key to progress. The profession will continue to promote engineering to all sections of society, in partnership with employers and using practising professionals as a key resource. Increasingly these collaborations will spread better practice. Our case studies show, for example the collaborative projects underway that will help provide more useful measures of the diversity within professional engineering, help the profession better understand the concerns underrepresented groups and to communicate more effectively with them.

“Progress is made through multiple small steps forward, many of which are interdependent.”



Barriers to ProgressThe understanding and the number of interventions undertaken by the engineering profession to increasing social mobility and widening participation to reflect better the community in which it operates is growing but incomplete. This report shows how the profession is meeting some of the recommendations of the Milburn review. There are however a number of notable barriers that will have to be tackled if success is to be achieved. These include:

l Poor attainment in mathematics and science and poor opportunity for progression for those who fall behind.

l The current direction of education policy in England with emphasis on academic qualifications and academic progression and the low recognition of the value of technical, practical subjects;

l A need to improve the quality of Apprenticeships as non-Academic progression pathways

l The removal of statutory careers education from schools in England and the recent changes to Careers Information, Advice and Guidance

Poor attainment and subsequent poor progression opportunitiesCase study 1 of this report showed how nationally, typically half of the cohort each year fail to achieve the basic level of science and mathematics, not just for progression in engineering, but to be active, functioning participants in a scientifically and mathematically dependent society. However, the research which has been undertaken shows there are many areas of the country where attainment is much worse than the national average. This not only prevents progression and careers in engineering but across a whole swathe of employment opportunities.

The other deeply worrying aspect of this low attainment is that once young people fall behind, they are unlikely to catch up. Data from the Department for Education official statistics22 shows that, of those 16 year olds who did not achieve A*–C grades at GCSE, only 17% went on to achieve the GCSE equivalent level 2 qualification at age 19.

The focus on academic qualificationsThe Secretary of State for Education, Rt. Hon. Michael Gove MP has undertaken a vast reform of the education system in England with the goal of improving standards and raising attainment, and much of it is to be

welcomed. However, there is concern that many high-quality vocational qualifications have been damaged by a blanket approach to reforms following the recommendations of Prof Alison Wolf in her review of Vocational Education The reforms have meant that there is a disincentive on schools to deliver many vocational qualifications which would be better suited to certain types of learners and which are valued by employers. Forthcoming reforms to accountability measures in the FE sector may also have a similar effect for post-16 vocational subjects in colleges across England.

Recent proposals to widen accountability measures to include vocational subjects are to be welcomed, however, the continued emphasis on academic subjects through the English Baccalaureate measure relegates technical subjects such as Design and Technology and all vocational qualifications to second best. This immediately creates a significant barrier to social mobility. The lack of a respected technical vocational pathway in schools and on a large scale remains a key issue.

Improvements to Apprenticeship pathwaysEngineering has long championed Apprenticeships as an alternative path to progression in our sectors. The long-held high level of regard that engineering employers have for Apprenticeships is why politicians are again seeing them as an alternative route into employment instead of higher education. However, E4E is concerned that the recent expansion of apprenticeships, largely from low quality, short duration apprenticeships, will result the value of the Apprenticeship brand being damaged in the long run. An Apprenticeship must be high-quality and long duration and it should be a real job with real training.

E4E welcomed the Richard Review of Apprenticeships, undertaken by the entrepreneur Doug Richard and we supported many of his findings. In particular, E4E supports the idea that Apprenticeships should focus on outcomes and that Apprenticeships should be based on industrial standards. For engineering, both of these principles would be served by UK-SPEC, the standard for professional engineering competence. Individuals completing an engineering Apprenticeship which has its foundations underpinned by UK-SPEC could lead directly to registration. This in turn would improve their employment prospects and social mobility.

22 Statistical First Release, SFR 05/2012, table iii. Department for Education. www.education.gov.uk


Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance for Young People The engineering community has deep concerns that careers guidance provision for young people in England is wholly inadequate. We are concerned that, with the removal of statutory duty for schools to provide careers education and the provision of impartial careers guidance to come from school budgets without any additional resources provided by government, the situation is likely to get worse. This is set against a bewildering array of choices, qualifications and vocational routes for young people and without any government strategy for skills to meet the future needs of the economy. Our concern is echoed by the majority of CBI members, of which 72% believe that careers advice needs to be improved23.

The engineering community has a particular interest in high quality, professional and impartial careers guidance in schools as we are concerned that future demand for a workforce with Science, Engineering and Technology skills will not be met.

E4E strongly believes that Professional Independent careers advisors are crucial to preventing the continuation of prevailing attitudes and misconceptions towards engineering and providing young people with informed choices. We believe that Government must re-emphasise the importance of independent, impartial and importantly, face-to-face information advice and guidance. Also, we believe that any business or organisation offering careers advice provision to schools and colleges should have at least one advisor with specialist knowledge of science, engineering and technology careers and sectors.

We have shown how the profession welcomes and provides flexible entry systems for those without higher education qualifications. However, systematic barriers to Higher Education merely undermine government’s social mobility aims and discourage individuals from seeing professional careers as a realistic option.

23 Learning to Grow: CBI Skills Survey 2012. www.cbi.org.uk



Measuring ProgressThe profession’s commitment to Fair Access continues. Through E4E it also commits to encouraging increased collaboration and to continuing its work to advise government on policy matters relevant to engineering and education. It also now commits to using E4E to measure its provision and impact on a range of issues that, between them, are fundamental to fair access to the engineering profession and therefore impact on social mobility. In this way an agreed body of evidence will be gathered and used to monitor progress over time.

E4E therefore commits to:

l A periodic Fair Access to Engineering review;

l Establish agreed measures to show the trends in the diversity of the profession and arrange the collection and analysis of relevant data including reference to Apprenticeships, Engineering Technicians and routes taken into Institution membership;

l Continue to act in all relevant areas and seek to remove all barriers to fair access to the engineering profession.


Recommendation 66:

Each profession should carry out a review of current practice on fair access to the profession, with a view to developing practical ideas for improvement. The professions should report publicly on these by the end of 2010, with a clear set of recommendations and an action plan for implementation.Recommendation 85:

The professions should routinely report on activities that are aimed at making access fairer as part of their established corporate social responsibility reporting arrangements.

This report is the first stage towards the Engineering Profession’s commitment to reporting on its activities that are aimed at improving access and widening participation to the Profession.


About Education for EngineeringE4E is the mechanism through which the engineering profession offers coordinated and clear advice on education to UK Government and the devolved Assemblies.

It deals with all aspects of learning that underpin engineering. It is both proactive and reactive to ensure that the education system continually remains appropriate to meet the challenges facing society. It is hosted by The Royal Academy of Engineering with a wide membership drawn from the professional engineering community including all of the professional engineering institutions.

E4E MembersBritish Computer SocietyBritish Institute of Non-Destructive TestingChartered Institution of Building Services EngineersChartered Institution of Highways & TransportationChartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating EngineeringChartered Institution of Water andEnvironmental ManagementEnergy InstituteEngineering Professors CouncilInstitution of Agricultural EngineersInstitution of Civil EngineersInstitution of Chemical EngineersInstitute of Cast Metals EngineersThe Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine EngineersInstitution of Engineering DesignersInstitution of Engineering and TechnologyInstitution of Fire EngineersInstitution of Gas Engineers and ManagersInstitute of Highway EngineersInstitute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate ManagementInstitution of Lighting EngineersInstitute of Marine Engineering, Science and TechnologyInstitution of Mechanical EngineersInstitute of Measurement and ControlInstitution of Royal EngineersInstitute of AcousticsInstitute of Materials, Minerals and MiningInstitute of PhysicsInstitute of Physics and Engineering in MedicineInstitution of Railway Signal EngineersInstitution of Structural EngineersInstitute of WaterNuclear InstituteRoyal Aeronautical SocietyRoyal Institution of Naval ArchitectsSociety of Environmental EngineersSociety of Operations EngineersThe Welding InstituteEngineering CouncilEngineeringUKThe Royal Academy of Engineering

E4E is supported by an Expert Panel whose members include: Design and Technology Association, My Science, SEMTA, STEMNET,

For more information, please contact:Dr Rhys Morgan Head of Secretariat, E4E The Royal Academy of Engineering 3 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5DG

T: 020 7766 0614 E: [email protected]

ASPIRATION & OPPORTUNITY Fair Access to the Engineering Profession

© E4E 2013

Documents

Fair Access to the Engineering Profession€¦ · Fair Access to the Engineering Profession Introduction In 2009 the Panel on Fair Access, chaired by Rt. Hon. Alan Milburn MP published