Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 30 APRIL 2008
MISS RACHAEL
MENSAH, MISS
SHORNA-KAY
REID, MR
OYENUGA ABIOYE,
MR LE'VAL
HAUGHTON-JAMES,
MR JOSH
SIMPSON, MR
DAVID LAKIN
AND MR
CHRIS MARTIN
Q1 Chairman: May I welcome our first
panel of witnesses to this the first oral evidence session on
the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee on
Engineering. This is the first major inquiry of this Committee
and can I say how privileged we are to have such a distinguished
panel of young engineers with us today. We have Miss Rachael Mensah,
St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls, in Year 9; Miss
Miss Reid, again of St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls,
Year 9; Mr Oyenuga Abioye—I understand you like to be called
Abi—a 3rd Year Architecture student from London South Bank
University; Mr Mr Haughton-James, a Year in Industry student sponsored
by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the London Engineering
Project; Mr Josh Simpson from the Ranelagh School, in Year 12;
Mr Lakin, Young Engineers field worker, who will be the chairman
of our panel today—you do not get any extra pay but if you
want to field a question, then field it down; and Mr Mr Martin
from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, a
PhD student at Imperial College, London. Thank you very much for
coming, Chris. Could I start with you, Rachel. Is this your first
time in the House of Commons?
Miss Mensah: Yes.
Q2 Chairman: Well, it will not be
your last. Now, you are at school in London; we have two of the
greatest football teams in Arsenal and Chelsea; we have Amy Winehouse,
one of the great—arguably—singers of our time; Grand
Theft Auto IV, was introduced this week. Why on earth do you want
to support engineering, rather than go with the normal team culture?
You might be doing that as well, but why engineering, what is
the attraction for you?
Miss Mensah: I enjoy it. It involves
hard work and thinking and challenges and I enjoy those sorts
of things. It encourages me to extend my mind so that instead
of doing everyday things; engineering can explore different fields.
Engineering includes maths, physics and other subjects and I enjoy
it and it just involves hard work really.
Q3 Chairman: Do you have engineers
in your family?
Miss Mensah: No.
Q4 Chairman: So, it is not dad saying,
"you must be an engineer".
Miss Mensah: No.
Q5 Chairman: What about you, Shorna-Kay,
what is the attraction for you?
Miss Reid: Basically, the same
things as Rachel. I like challenges; it helps to train the mind
to think rather than stay inside the box.
Q6 Chairman: Right. What do engineers
do?
Mr Abioye: Engineers are creative
people; they do imagine things and bring it to normal life. They
are more technical based people; they imagine things; they view
things; they create things and make them usable for people.
Q7 Chairman: What a fantastic answer.
Josh, what is the attraction of engineering for you?
Mr Simpson: I think it is the
same sort of argument, that it is a challenge. It differentiates
from science and maths because once you have done that challenge,
you have something to show for your hard work; you have created
something that is good. That is one of the important things.
Q8 Chairman: Le'val, what is the
excitement for you? What is the satisfaction do you think in wanting
to become an engineer?
Mr Haughton-James: You get to
achieve things in building, design and creation. Not just write
your design on paper but to actually build it and say "Yes,
I have achieved something; everybody enjoys my creation and anyone
can use it". So, engineering is really for everyone.
Q9 Chairman: David, you meet many
young engineers, as a field worker, do you work for Year in Industry
as well? Do you have you any involvement with that?
Mr Lakin: I work with Year in
Industry, yes.
Q10 Chairman: Right, so that is your
umbrella body. Why did you want to come into this field?
Mr Lakin: My background is engineering—production
engineering for Caterpillar for ten years. For me, I wanted to
encourage others to take up engineering because the perception
of engineering is so bad at the moment that seeing it first hand
in industry, where people are coming up to retirement, but nobody
fresh is coming up through the ranks to take up these positions,
it is a problem. Working with young people, they are the most
creative people that you could ever work with; their ideas, their
suggestions, etc., it is amazing. The problem is that once they
have got these ideas they are not developed from there at schools.
Careers advisers and teachers do not necessarily push kids into
engineering, mainly because they do not have the right perception
of engineering themselves. Those who have an interest in engineering,
science and maths, it then gets wasted because they get pushed
into other areas. Parents also have the wrong perception. It is
parents who influence the children's decisions in what careers
to go into and what subjects to take at school, so if they have
the wrong perception, they are going to deflect the youngsters
into something else. For me, taking up this position, it gives
me the opportunity to work with parents, schools and kids to change
their perception of what engineering is; show them that it is
an excellent career to go into and that they can make a difference;
engineers can save the world, engineers can make a big difference
to everybody's life, and without engineers we would not be where
we are today.
Q11 Chairman: If it is such a powerful
message though, why are more people not doing it?
Mr Lakin: People, especially young
people, see engineering as a smelly, dirty, factory job. It is
as simple as that. We did focus groups with a number of young
people and said, "Could you tell me what an engineer is?"
Their answer was, "Oh, it's like Gary from East Enders"—a
mechanic, who wears overalls and gets his hands dirty, and that
is it. For many people, they do not want to go into that; they
want to wear a suit to go to work; they want to sit in an office
and that is fair enough. We are trying to show them that it is
a type of engineering but there are many other different types
of engineering, for example, when I was a production engineer
for Caterpillar, I went to work in a suit and worked in an office
and used computer-aided systems, etc. So it is trying to show
that you can do all things and you can make a difference; you
can come up with an idea that can change things.
Q12 Chairman: Chris, you are a PhD
student at one of the world's leading universities, with a wonderful
record in terms of engineering, yet most of the students that
you did your undergraduate work with, if they were engineering
students, have gone off to do something else, so it cannot be
that attractive. What is the message that this Committee should
be taking forward from you?
Mr Martin: I personally came into
it from geology, I did not do an engineering degree because I
was not aware what engineering was when I was at school, so I
chose a broad science degree, and then somewhat drifted into engineering
once I had done that and then wondered what I could apply this
to. So, I stumbled upon engineering later in life.
Q13 Chairman: You must be the exception,
Chris.
Mr Martin: That is right, yes.
Most of my peer group at university that did engineering, most
of them were swallowed up by the City, they moved into finance,
accounting, or became lawyers, because of the attractive salaries.
Q14 Chairman: So, it is about salaries,
really.
Mr Martin: That certainly does
play a role. Obviously, engineering students are very bright,
they have got very good transferable skills, are very good communicators,
project management is a key part of engineering and those skills
are readily transferable into other industries.
Q15 Ian Stewart: Rachel, what type
of career in engineering do you see yourself going into? Any particular
aspect of engineering?
Miss Mensah: I like the idea of
architecture, building and construction and design. I am more
into the ideas and creation rather than the actual building. I
like to think up new ideas; maybe inventions.
Q16 Ian Stewart: Very good. Josh,
could I ask you the same question, please.
Mr Simpson: For me, it is planes,
cars, things that go fast—Formula One engineering always
looks very exciting; building new planes that are more environmentally
friendly, etc., is what I would like to go into because I think
it is exciting.
Q17 Ian Stewart: Thank you for that.
Le'val, why do you think engineering is important?
Mr Haughton-James: Without engineering,
half of us would not be here right now, e.g., cars, trains, transport.
It is useful in everyday life and if we get more engineers we
can make life easier and much better. It is an actual fulfilment
inside you to know that you helped to design and build trains.
Q18 Ian Stewart: So what do you see
yourself doing in 20 years' time?
Mr Haughton-James: Just leaving
university with a civil engineering degree.
Q19 Chairman: If you had the choice,
Le'val, between earning £30,000 as a civil engineer and £50,000
in the City as a banker, which would you choose?
Mr Haughton-James: Civil engineer.
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