Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2008
MS TERRY
MARSH, MRS
GEMMA MURPHY,
MS PAT
LANGFORD AND
FRANCIS EVANS
Q220 Chairman: How do you know you
are successful, how do you know where to put your efforts? It
is a huge area.
Mrs Murphy: Absolutely, engineering
is massive, we all know that, and what we try and do is run a
number of different courses that reflect the nature of engineering,
so we have subjects that cover nanotechnology, marine technology,
biomedical engineering, design and manufacture, mobile communications,
super-computing—we have a whole array of different courses
and really from our perspective we are simply limited by funding.
At the moment now we have about 32 courses a year which are heavily
over-subscribed. The demand we find is out there, we have got
the marketing in place which satisfies, which the students like,
they sign up to our courses. 40 per cent attend more than one
course a year, 67 per cent have said that going on a Smallpeice
Trust residential course has influenced them to go into engineering
as a career. With regards to females, almost 40 per cent of students
on our courses are females and on the aim higher and the widening
participation courses that is nearer to the 60/70 per cent mark.
Q221 Chairman: Terry, we will close
down WISE and we will put all the money to Smallpeice, would that
be okay? How do you decide where you are going to put your efforts?
Where is your intelligence, where is your research base to say
this is our next programme?
Ms Marsh: You have hit the nail
on the head. If you were to ask me what the Government should
be doing now, I have been told in the past there is plenty of
research, we are drowning in research, but actually we are swimming
in polluted waters, we do not have good solid evidence as to what
it is that is affecting girls and their decisions in life. Is
it their peers, is it the media, is it their parents, is it teachers?
If we could actually do a really nice piece of snapshot research,
followed by longitudinal research, the snapshot would perhaps
go year 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, just get a snapshot of where
boys and girls are at the moment, what they think about their
future and what they think about subjects. Two years later do
it again and, actually, you will start to see what is happening
and you are starting to track how these decisions are made; they
are not made by a flick of the switch in Year 9. I absolutely
take on board that people are really motivated, but actually they
may decide to study but they then may drop out, they may decide
to stick with physics but then they do not do that when they go
to university, or they do BEng at university and then drop out.
Let us follow them, let us work out what is going on, we do not
know sufficiently.
Q222 Chairman: Francis, is this the
job of government or is this the job of industry to do this really
detailed research so we can properly plan provision?
Mr Evans: If it is research in
order to inform central provision then I would say that is the
role of government because it is government that had got that
central co-ordinating role. Industry would certainly wish to research
the effectiveness of the activities in which it would invest and
so, for example, Gemma has described the kind of research that
Smallpeice does and that is recognised by industry as a very high
quality provision and indeed many companies invest in it.
Q223 Chairman: Should industry be
doing more or are you happy that this is a government problem
of actually producing the generic material in order to create
tomorrow's engineers?
Ms Langford: I do not think there
is a sufficiently co-ordinated approach and in some of the previous
evidence you heard there was this issue that actually everybody
has their own take on it and it is not really sufficiently co-ordinated.
Q224 Chairman: Who should be doing
it?
Ms Langford: Terry makes a very
interesting point that there is this great plethora of stuff out
there but nobody has actually ever produced any real workable,
consistent evidence. It is also important to remember that actually
with engineering, almost differently from many careers, it does
have this problem about perception, about stereotypes and those
sorts of things which have been extremely hard to crack for a
long time. Also, young people today are bombarded with all these
other different images and in fact we quote a couple of statistics:
apparently, if you ask a group of teenagers to name the most famous
engineer in Britain the majority of them will talk about Kevin
Webster who is a car mechanic on Coronation Street.
Q225 Dr Iddon: A very good one.
Ms Langford: I am sure he is a
very good one, but that apparently is a common perception amongst
young people. Equally, I am told that they did a study in the
North East a while ago and asked young people how they thought
they would make their fortunes, and something like 14 per cent
of them said it would be through a reality television programme.
Statistically it is something like 50 million to one that you
will actually succeed that way, which is four times the lottery,
I believe, so there we are. There is this lack of somebody actually
grabbing hold of this and really taking responsibility for it.
Q226 Chairman: There is a long period
of time, is there not, between the work that Gemma is doing with
Year 9 students, actually getting them to recognise the excitement
of engineering, and what Philip Greenish talks about in terms
of chartered engineers who are members of the Academy; it is a
long, long process.
Ms Langford: Absolutely.
Q227 Chairman: Do we feel that we
have put down enough roots at the moment that in ten years time
or 15 years time there will be a lot of flowers blooming within
the engineering world? Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
Ms Langford: I am optimistic because
in the previous evidence they did talk about the stem report and
in the last three years in particular both DIUSS and DCSF have
grabbed hold of this in a much more coherent fashion and they
have produced the STEM report, they have appointed John Holman
as the national STEM director, they are putting more emphasis
into it now and the National Science Learning Centres are also
going to have a National STEM Centre so they are recognising the
importance of teaching engineering within that and the importance
of demonstrating that engineering is the appliance of science.
They have let two contracts now for careers work to Sheffield
Hallam University and Warwick University to actually start building
what they call a timeline with young people at different stages;
they are going to start with Key Stage 3 but they are going to
say how can we make sure that during those children's education
between 11 and 14 they are exposed to specific, very well designed
interventions that make them see that that thing you just learned,
this is how it looks in the real world, this is the excitement
that you can actually see.
Q228 Dr Iddon: I just want to focus
on co-ordination a little more. Francis, in your evidence you
reckon that there could be much more co-ordination; would you
just like to expand upon that and how do you guys get together
for a start, how do the different organisations who are involved
in extending participation get together?
Mr Evans: We would typically get
together around a specific task where we have a common aim and,
going back to the earlier evidence where the question was asked
what could government do to bring about the Nirvana of a more
united action, it seems to me that rather than starting with getting
people to merge or getting people to work together, if you start
with a job that they need to do, where they need to collaborate
in order to achieve it, that tends to be a more effective way
because it also takes your mind perhaps from all the organisational
issues towards the job in hand. For example, if we take the annual
Festival of Engineering at Rockingham Motor Speedway that the
Learning Grid runs each year, we are working with STEMNET, in
particular their regional director in that part of the world,
with the Smallpeice Trust and their colleagues who are providing
activities to deliver a project that hopefully will give between
2000 and 3000 children a great time learning about engineering.
Q229 Dr Iddon: This is a question
of course to all, would it not be better if there was an umbrella
organisation like EXCITE! which has been recently formed to co-ordinate
the work of science centres; would it not be better if we had
a body like that? Pat, you mentioned DIUSS as a helpful co-ordinating
body, so the first question is should there be a co-ordinating
body and the second question is who should do that co-ordination?
Ms Langford: You have already
heard from Philip Greenish that the shape of the future is pulling
together a whole collection of different initiatives that are
all successful in their own ways; how they are successful as they
move on, of course, is another question, and are we able to track
the success into the future life of youngsters, so there are umbrella
opportunities as it were for us all, we get together under the
STM programme, we get together with DIUSS, we get together under
Shape the Future, so we are always talking to each other.
Q230 Dr Iddon: The message is coming
over, Terry, that that is not good enough, it could be better.
Ms Marsh: If you are saying to
me is there a strategy, you have hit the nail on the head: there
is no strategy.
Q231 Dr Iddon: Who should develop
the strategy, who should be responsible for getting hold of it,
plotting it and bringing you all together under it?
Ms Marsh: As an evidence base
is built up via the research that I was speaking about earlier
if you are tying in with the STEM programme, which is gradually
pulling together—we are in danger of doing housekeeping,
we are desperately tidying at the risk of losing our destination
which is why are we tidying, why are we doing all of this, what
is the strategy for the future if we could start from scratch.
Perhaps it is right to have fewer initiatives, I am not quite
sure what the argument is for that, if people just feel comfortable
with smaller numbers, but actually why are we doing this I think
is a really important point and I really feel confident that under
John Holman we are starting to think more than that housekeeping
approach, we are starting to think about the future.
Ian Stewart: Going back to Brian's question,
who should co-ordinate all this, who should set the strategy and
drive it forward?
Q232 Chairman: In answering that
question do you feel that there is a need to co-ordinate all the
organisations, Gemma?
Mrs Murphy: From Smallpeice's
perspective, do we have enough demand for our courses? Yes. Could
we run additional courses? Absolutely, if we had money. The demand,
therefore, and the interest from the students is certainly there
but in terms of clarity and how we communicate that to teachers,
is there something that we could do to make it a little bit easier
then I suspect the answer would be yes, absolutely.
Q233 Dr Iddon: Gemma, you measure
the success of all your activities which I applaud; how do you
measure the success of what you are actually doing as a trust?
Mrs Murphy: Our trust is all about
activities and deliverables.
Q234 Dr Iddon: If you did not exist
would there be any ripples on the surface?
Mrs Murphy: I think that is very
difficult to say, is it not? What we do know is that what we provide
as the Smallpeice Trust does influence some students, but nevertheless
that student will have a multitude of different external factors
which will influence that student along the way, and it is very
difficult, actually impossible, to isolate it and say actually,
thanks to the Smallpeice Trust you have become an engineer.
Q235 Dr Iddon: I have mentioned DIUSS
already; do you think they should have much more of a co-ordinating
role with all the voluntary activities that you are engaged in?
Ms Langford: It is a difficult
one because the minute you start talking about co-ordination and
co-operation, those words can be interpreted in so many different
ways and there is always a risk that the minute you start trying
to impose that sort of—let us use another C word which is
control—you start to lose yet another one which is creativity.
We are becoming much more mature about working together in a way
that actually focuses on who are the important people here? It
is UK Plc because we have the gap in skills but on the other side
it is the young people and their teachers with whom we need to
work because they are our customers as well, so my sense of having
been in this game for the last three or four years is that people
are actually starting to become much more collaborative. A good
example is the DCSF decided to set up the after school science
and engineering clubs; they fund those and we, STEMNET, act as
the principal co-ordinating project management for that but we
work very closely with a number of partners and it is done on
a very equitable basis, that everybody has a specific role, everybody
has a cut of the cake if you like, but everybody knows exactly
what they are going to do and, as a project, it works extremely
successfully; the schools are given the money and the schools
are told about organisations like Francis's and the Smallpeice
Trust, that they can then be encouraged to get involved with them,
so it is a self-referencing model, if you like. I am slightly
wary, there is to some extent still a lack of co-ordination but
a number of people have tried to think about what that might look
like and have backed away because—
Q236 Chairman: You might lose more
than you gain.
Ms Langford: Yes, possibly.
Mr Evans: I would just make the
point that the majority of these organisations, certainly including
Smallpeice, rely on either charitable donations—in the Smallpeice
Trust as you may know it was the legacy of Dr Cosby Smallpeice,
the founder—or industrial contributions that are currently
continuing. Where government is providing a very small fraction
of the overall funding, it is rather hard then for it to play
a co-ordinating role because people will say we have our own criteria
and our own aims for these funds, we are volunteers or trustees,
whatever it might be, and I very much agree with Pat that collaboration
is a better way forward where you can find a mutual interest,
unless government were to say here is a very large carrot, if
you collaborate this is the prize that you can win and then you
might have a chance.
Q237 Dr Iddon: Terry, 25 years of
WISE; have you made an impact, do you think, are there more women
in engineering now than when you started?
Ms Marsh: There are double the
number studying engineering, yes, 15 per cent, but as I said we
have hit the barriers, we have won the quick wins, but I would
like to actually move slightly away to the difference between
having a government strategy and having government control. We
are begging the question of whether initiatives into school that
come and go are good things. We would all agree that they are
`good things', but how do they measure up against a number of
other good things that are going to do good work to get the outcome,
which is that we are going to build the UK into an engineering
force for the future, so it is one of many things. What are the
other things and what is the strategy for prioritising all those
other things as well. Take for instance Ofcom; right now it is
doing a public consultation on public service broadcasting; we
would not necessarily think of it straightaway, but where is the
Tomorrow's World inspiring all the kids that used to be
there and is not there any more, can the BBC justify its billions
when it is not actually providing a popular science programme
or engineering programme to attract young people in. Let us look
at what the strategy is across the piece. In fact, I would say
Channel Five is doing probably the best for engineering at the
moment, I have seen three different types of engineering programmes
on Channel Five in the last month—Big, Bigger, Biggest
being the one that I enjoyed most; I do not know whether other
people saw that, but it was excellent.
Dr Iddon: One last question, do you think
you are trying to deal with too many engineering institutions,
is that a problem for your organisation?
Q238 Chairman: Can you give us a
very brief answer?
Ms Marsh: It is not a problem
for us, we have our minds set elsewhere.
Q239 Ian Stewart: Do you relate to
the institutions?
Ms Marsh: Yes, they can be very
supportive at times.
Mrs Murphy: We get some funding
as well from the institutions so we are appreciative of their
work.
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