Memorandum 35
Submission from Universities UK
INTRODUCTION
1. Universities UK welcomes the opportunity
to make a submission to this inquiry, and the articulation of
a debate on this key issue of engineering. The knowledge and work
of UK engineers is absolutely critical to the economy, and contributes
to developments in virtually every aspect of our lives: our health,
transport systems, building and construction, production manufacturing
and design of products, IT development, and climate change. The
central importance of our ability to continue to produce, develop
and support quality engineers, across the range of specialisms
(chemical, electrical, structural, mechanical, aeronautical, design
and civil) must not be underestimated.
2. The UK must compete with rapidly developing
countries in what is now a global market. China and India now
produce half a million engineering graduates every year and are
producing record numbers of graduate engineers to fuel their technological
and economic development. The UK higher education system needs
appropriate support to enable continued provision of highly skilled
engineers that are a key factor in supporting business and ensuring
the UK remains competitive.
RECOMMENDATIONS
3. This submission sets out our views on
key areas and makes five key recommendations:
- Better advice and guidance should be provided
to all students regarding engineering careers, opportunities and
progression routes.
- Levels of funding for engineering courses
should be raised by between 50-80% through the provision of additional
funding for teaching, to better reflect the true costs of teaching
engineering in higher education.
- Employers must take responsibility for
engagement in higher-level learning and research training for
the UK's engineers and scientists.
- UK primary and secondary education systems
should be enabled to provide better Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics (STEM) (particularly Maths) skills to students,
to ensure take-up of STEM courses at a higher level is not constrained.
- Support and incentives should be provided
to small and medium sized enterprises' (SME) employers to enable
them to engage with higher education and potentially to employ
and develop engineering graduates and retain them in the profession.
4. The drive to deliver low cost graduates
and a resulting move away from open-ended learning will not stimulate
the type of excitement and interest in subjects like engineering
which will drive students and graduates to want to follow a career
in related fields. This will occur through inspirational teaching
and exciting open-ended programmes. Government need to recognise
this and that appropriate funding of quality courses/teaching
must not be sacrificed to meet other targets.
5. Industry needs many more high-quality
engineers but along with student desire to study in this area,
migration of engineering skills to other sectors must be addressed.
Employment rates six months after graduation in 2005 for engineering
graduates were higher than the average for all first-degree disciplines[121]
but despite salaries of 17.4% above average for all first degree
graduates[122]
a significant number go into a range of other careers-60% of registered
engineers are spread throughout other sectors of the economy.[123]
6. The higher education market is now driven
by student demand; and the factors that affect student choice
are therefore critical to the take-up of courses that will generate
the graduates that business want. Engineering employers and engineering
professional institutions, over many years, have failed to inform
young people (and parents) of the exciting, sustainable and well-paid
career opportunities on offer within the engineering profession.
There is a need to have high quality, and targeted information,
advice and guidance available to applicants when making their
choices for AS and A levels, and generally provision of better
advice and guidance to students at all stages on engineering careers,
opportunities and progression routes.
7. The supply chain also affects take-up
of undergraduate qualification in engineering: the limitations
of those students coming through UK primary and secondary education
in maths is a major constraint to take-up of STEM subject at A
Level, a requirement for a STEM university course or professional
STEM career. If there is to be any success later in the supply
chain these issues must be addressed. We support current work
led by the National Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE),
which will examine how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), schools
and universities can work together to to improve demand for STEM
subjects.
8. The development of the 14-19 Diplomas
could be seen as an important factor in terms of "supply".
These have been designed to encourage more young people to continue
learning for longer and to have the chance to pursue a curriculum
which is intended to provide them with knowledge skills and attitudes
that they need to succeed in work, life and further learning including
progression on to an HE qualification.
9. Of particular significance is the Engineering
Diploma, which is intended to provide young people with a foundation
in engineering principles. The Diploma is aimed specifically at
equipping young people to go on to higher levels of study or employment.
It will apply theoretical knowledge and skills to engineering
with an emphasis on learning by doing. The Diploma also covers
a range of industries involved in engineering as well as looking
at issues of sustainability and the application of physics and
maths in engineering.
10. As well as developing theoretical, technical
and practical skills, young people will be required to learn general
IT skills and the `softer' skills such as team working, problem
solving and multi-disciplinary working, management and organisational
skills, all of which will be useful in working within different
engineering related industries.
11. The Royal Academy of Engineering[124]
found in a recent study that UK engineering graduates are still
world class. It is accepted however that business now place more
importance on graduates having experience applying theory to real
industrial problems. The HE sector recognises the importance of
experience in industry and most now incorporate placements into
engineering courses-students therefore need opportunities to experience
genuine industrial environments through work placements and projects.
It is often an unwillingness from business to offer placements
that proves the determining factor in sector provision and the
delivery of placements and sandwich type courses. Business must
be encouraged to engage in order to reap the benefits of these
types of courses.
12. Industry must accept responsibility
for promoting careers to students, and for engaging with universities
to ensure that they get graduates and postgraduates with they
skills they want. They must also ensure that they supporting and
retaining these graduates by offering Continuous Professional
Development (CPD) and professional development throughout their
careers. Industry also has an input to make if University staff
are to develop new teaching material which takes account of the
success of academic-industrial research links. A large proportion
of UK engineering companies are SMEs. These SME employers need
support and incentives to engage with higher education and to
employ and develop engineering graduates and retain them in the
profession. We urge Government to provide support for SMEs though
incentives or voucher schemes to enable them to progress along
the "innovation escalator", which relates to this type
of engagement through graduate employment/placements etc.
13. The Engineering and Technology Board
(ETB) and the Engineering Professors' Council (EPC) recently commissioned
independent consultants to investigate the costs of teaching engineering
in Higher Education institutions in England and to provide a comparison
with current levels of funding.[125]
The findings of the study indicate that the present costs and
funding levels threaten the sustainability and future quality
of teaching, and suggest that the capacity for further efficiency
savings is limited. We recognise the EPC and the ETB view that
to maintain the long-term capacity and capability of engineering
in the UK, which depends upon a high quality output from its HE
Engineering Departments, levels of funding must be revised to
reflect better the true costs of teaching engineering in HE, in
line with recent findings of the Royal Academy[126]
that funding per university engineering student needs to increase
by 50-80%. This would need to be supported with additional resource
to the sector.
14. Universities UK's Spending Review submission
highlights the significant cost pressures that universities are
under across all teaching areas. The introduction of variable
fees from 2006 will make a major contribution, though the underlying
financial position of the sector remains fragile and it will take
time to overcome historic under-investment. To do this, it is
crucial that the unit of public resource is protected and further
growth is fully funded.
15. In 2006 the government announced its
intention to replace the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) with
a less burdensome system relying to a greater extent on metrics
as indicators of research quality. Initial proposals for a system
based on income metrics were largely rejected by the academic
community on the basis that this approach would not adequately
assess the quality of research, being largely a volume measure.
Further to this the government announced a broad framework for
the new system that would take greater account of research quality,
and HEFCE were invited to take the development of the new approach
forward.
16. Since then HEFCE have undertaken substantial
developmental work. A key feature of the new system, put out for
consultation by HEFCE in late 2007, is to develop distinct approaches
for the science and non-science based disciplines. Science based
disciplines would be driven to a larger extent by metrics (with
bibliometric indicators playing a key role), with non-sciences
assessed on the basis of `light touch' peer review. The sciences
would be subdivided into six broad subject groups, one of which
would include Engineering.
17. Following the publication of HEFCE's
consultation, concerns were raised within the Engineering community
over the appropriateness of bibliometric measures when applied
to Engineering. This is largely because coverage in the bibliometric
database, World of Science (WoS), is not complete in this area.
Indeed, this limitation was recognised by HEFCE in the consultation,
who indicated that they would investigate this issue further with
subject representative groups.
18. Universities UK has broadly welcomed
the direction of travel outlined in the HEFCE consultation, though
Universities UK reflected concerns raised in some specific discipline
areas, including Engineering. It has been suggested that due to
the limitations of bibliometric data, Engineering would need to
be reclassified in the non-sciences. However, Universities UK
have not been convinced by this. In the RAE 2008, Engineering
already maximises the use of metrics and it would appear sensible
that a workable basket of metrics should be developed for this
discipline. We welcome HEFCE's intention to undertake further
work in this area, in consultation with the Engineering community.
19. Universities share the concerns of the
Engineering, and other academic communities, of the implications
for multi and interdisciplinary research across the proposed science/non-science
divide as currently proposed. We would prefer to see arrangements
where a continuum approach is taken, rather than having a sharp
divide that requires fitting subjects into one "box"
or the other. The full Universities UK response can be found at
.http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/research/downloads/REF_Response.pdf.
EUROPE UNIT
20. The UK Higher Education Europe Unit
(www.europeunit.ac.uk),
based at Universities UK, advises UK higher education institutions
on European HE policy developments. Europe Unit guidance on the
Bologna Process to create a European Higher Education Area of
comparable HE structures has included advice on implications for
four-year integrated Masters degrees in engineering and other
professional subjects. Further information is available at http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/sites/europe_unit2/resources/E-05-12.doc
March 2008
121 HECSU what do graduates do? 2007. Back
122
HECSU what do graduates do? 2007. Back
123
Engineering and Technology Board Engineering UK research report
2005. Back
124
Royal Academy of Engineering Educating Engineers for the 21st
Century June 2007. Back
125
A summary of the findings and the full report from JM Consulting
Ltd is available on the websites of the ETB (www.etechb.co.uk)
and the EPC (www.epc.ac.uk). Back
126
Royal Academy Educating Engineers for the 21st Century 2007. Back
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