Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 21 MAY 2008
MR KEITH
ELLIOTT, PROFESSOR
BARRY CLARKE,
DR LESLEY
THOMPSON AND
MS LYNN
TOMKINS
Q300 Chairman: But they cannot get
any money because these guys get all the money.
Ms Tomkins: Agreed, but that is
the system, so we do have to look at the best investment of the
public purse for skills.
Q301 Dr Gibson: I want to talk about
gender imbalance in colleges and engineering, in particular, and
ethnic minorities and so on. Is that true and what are you doing
about it? In what areas of your endeavour are these imbalances
present, if at all?
Mr Elliott: Well, there are gender
imbalances, but the gender imbalances are across engineering.
It is not just a question of gender imbalances in colleges, there
is a gender imbalance in employment in most sectors of engineering.
The colleges are working hard in many ways to try to do something
about this, both working in schools to try to remove the gender
stereotyping by working with the women in science and engineering
campaigns, for example, a group of young female students working
with Rolls-Royce last summer to try to raise the image of engineering
and try to remove some of these gender issues, but these are deep-rooted
questions. There is deep-rooted prejudice in relation to gender,
in my opinion, within the engineering industry and I think the
college sector does need to do more, and I fully accept that,
but it needs to be able to work in partnership with schools and
it also needs to get more support from employers, particularly
in some sectors of engineering. As the funding moves to more employer-based
working where we already have a predominance of male staff, then
the situation could get worse as more women find it difficult
to get funding for programmes which are going to be based around
the needs of the currently male-dominated workforce, so I think
there are serious issues here which clearly the college sector
has to play a part in and a greater part, but I think also employers
and schools need to join with us in some sort of alliance around
this in a more effective way. There are lots of small examples
of success, but what we are not seeing is a breakthrough.
Q302 Dr Gibson: Is it anything to
do with childcare and the expectations that women still have put
on them in an unfair society, you know what I mean?
Mr Elliott: Well, there may be
some of that, but I think—
Q303 Dr Gibson: Are you doing anything
about that? Do you have pressures?
Mr Elliott: We have pressures,
but I personally think that more important is the image of engineering,
the peer pressure amongst young people which steers young girls
into other forms of occupation and that there is not an effective
countering of that by schools. What I find interesting is that
we do have more female students within aeronautical engineering
than, to a degree, mechanical and electrical, very few in motor
vehicle, and I think that reflects something to do with the industries,
but some of the students we do have are outstanding, and it seems
to be the case that outstanding females can struggle through in
this situation which is very difficult, I think, for young people
working in a predominantly male environment. There is also an
issue of recruiting female staff, qualified staff, which is a
problem, so there is a sector-wide issue here which we are very
keen to be a part of the solution to, but we cannot do it on our
own and we need more support from employers and we certainly need
more support from schools who often steer young people away from
engineering, particularly girls.
Professor Clarke: Perhaps I can
say one or two things from the higher educational point of view.
One of the things that we have identified is the need to increase
the number of role models and what is happening in higher education
is that we are seeing an increasing number of female academics.
Partly this is driven by the ongoing pressure to engage more females,
but also because a lot of our research is moving on to the boundaries
of the hard-core, technical engineering and much more into the
social side. The second thing is that with the ambassador schemes
that we are using to encourage young people to come into engineering,
there is a significant number of female graduates and female students
who take part in those, so again the children in schools will
see this, so we are increasing the numbers gradually.
Q304 Dr Harris: Just on that last
question, to what extent, say, in the college sector are you measuring
outcomes? In other words, you say you are doing all of these things
and you could be doing what you need to do, but, if things do
not change, are you measuring whether things are changing so that
you know whether you need to do something else, do more?
Professor Clarke: College or university?
Q305 Dr Harris: Both.
Mr Elliott: Absolutely.
Q306 Dr Harris: What are your outcomes?
Mr Elliott: Well, our outcomes
are that, whereas there has been a small increase in some sectors,
there has not been an increase in terms of gender, if we are talking
about gender, of the nature that we would like and, therefore,
we do need to not just try harder, but we need to find new ways
of forming these co-operations with schools and employers to generate
not just provision, but pathways into employment. I do think the
central question here is the opportunities of employment and,
to a certain extent, the attitude of some employers. Some major
employers have a very positive approach. For example, we are the
managing agent for Porsche cars and the Porsche apprentice of
the year last year was a female student, but for smaller companies,
and, unlike what was suggested earlier, we do work with over 200
smaller companies in a membership-based organisation of SMEs,
it is more difficult to get employers to recruit females, and
I think there are major attitudinal issues here.
Q307 Dr Harris: You are doing a lot,
but I want to move on from what you are doing to what more can
be done, so, if I turn to Professor Clarke, is there a rigorous
metric to say how we are doing and at what point do you say, "Well,
government really now needs to do more because they fund the UK
resource centre and they, in turn, work with WISE", but in
the end you cannot control what stereotypes are created in schools
and government has to act? Can you let me know if you think that
is something that should be happening more, in other words, you
cannot do it on your own?
Professor Clarke: If I can just
answer the first part about the metrics, the way that university
education systems move very much now is reflecting in numbers
of students, types of students, mature students, gender, ethnic,
so every course has an annual review, so we do know the numbers
of students which are coming through. We are losing out on 50
per cent of the population—
Q308 Dr Harris: Yes.
Professor Clarke:—and that
is an issue for us, and the role models I talked about before
is one example. The other example is ensuring that, when we interview
students, parents come along, so these are very practical solutions
to try and engage female students within the idea that they can
become engineers. One interesting story of many years ago was
when the Gateshead Millennium Bridge opened. The schoolchildren
were brought down to see this magnificent bridge arrive and they
interviewed the females, the 12-year-old girls that were standing
there, and one of them said, and did not say it in these words,
but, "I come from a deprived area and I wanted to be a hairdresser,
but, after I have seen this, I want to be an engineer", so
it is actually getting the impact of engineering over, that is
important.
Q309 Dr Harris: I understand that,
but all I am saying is that the sector cannot do that much on
its own. Do you feel you are getting enough support from earlier
in the chain when girls at school are making decisions?
Professor Clarke: The significant
voluntary input from academics and from industry and from colleges
into schools is from the age of five in terms of funding for that,
but, as I say, very much driven by the professional institutions
and industry.
Q310 Dr Harris: I am going to change
the subject now. The question is whether the university engineering
courses equip people, graduates, well for industry and, firstly
you, Professor Clarke, is that the aim or is the aim to teach
them engineering, not necessarily just for industry?
Professor Clarke: There are 78
universities in the UK that deliver engineering courses, a very
diverse range of courses, so you have courses which are delivering
the very high level of skills and the courses which are delivering
more on the technical side, and not only that, but in the range
of disciplines as well, so very diverse. All of these courses
are accredited by the professional institutions and the professional
institutions' directions are given by industry and by academia,
so industry have an input not only on the practical side, but
into the design of the courses. In terms of whether they prepare
graduates for the world of work, there is a debate at the moment
and, for example, we moved from giving technical education many
years ago towards technical education and management skills and
industry are now saying, "We want you to revert back to the
technical education because the management skills can be delivered
in industry", so what I foresee in the future will be much
more of a partnership between industry and universities.
Q311 Dr Harris: But it has always
been a partnership—
Professor Clarke: More formal.
Q312 Dr Harris:—this partnership
and that partnership. What you are saying is that there is now
a gap between what industry wants because they want more of the
technical side and less of the management side, so you would accept
that, where we are now in a dynamic movement, the courses are
not that well-equipped for what at least some parts of industry
want. How long, if that is the case, would it take universities
to change the way they deliver the courses to ensure that there
is a closer match—next year or five years' time?
Professor Clarke: Well, it is
interesting. Some industries want oven-ready graduates who can
slot straight into their organisation. There are other industries
or parts of the industry that would like graduates who in up to
20 years' time will be leading the company, so there are different
skill sets needed. There is also the real concern that our courses
have to be both useful and effective and this is really, I think,
looking at the demographic changes and looking at the overseas
education of engineers because many of our companies are global
and they recruit from anywhere in the world.
Q313 Dr Harris: So what you are saying
is that you will never be able to match every industry's wishes
and you are doing pretty well. Is that what you are saying?
Professor Clarke: That is right,
because industry is so diverse and the level of skills that are
required is very variable.
Q314 Dr Harris: Semta, do you think
there is more that could be done to get the match right?
Ms Tomkins: Certainly our employers
expressed that there was more that could be done to get the match
right. There were some concerns about bioscience and science graduates
coming out without some applied skills that were taught at university
previously, so we have documented some of the key areas where
there are some concerns. Clearly, where there is a very strong
employer link with a university, often it is good, but, if we
are talking about in general, there is some work that was identified
could be done.
Q315 Dr Harris: Do other countries
do better and, if they do, is that because their employers have
different expectations, the course is longer, there is more time
spent with industry, or because they have a more general education
to start with? Do other countries do better and which countries
are those and why do you think it is?
Ms Tomkins: I could not comment
on which countries do better, but it is varied in terms of whether
it is three year or four year, whether there are sandwich courses
and those opportunities, so it is a very varied and complex issue.
Q316 Dr Harris: Can anyone comment
on which countries do better because I would have thought that,
if industry are not happy, they might say, "Well, look at
what Japan is doing" or "Look at what France is doing"
or Germany.
Ms Tomkins: We have not made any
global comparisons.
Professor Clarke: If I can comment
on evidence again from global companies, they employ engineers
because of their skill sets. One of the advantages that is recognised
with engineering graduates from British universities is that they
are very good at problem-solving skills, so we have a strength
there which other countries do not have.
Mr Elliott: Obviously, as I mentioned
before, there is a case for developing degrees, foundation degrees
and other degrees, jointly designed by employers where much of
the study is actually in the workplace, and that is the work that
we are doing with Airbus and developing. We have developed in
the third year of this a foundation degree which was jointly designed
by that company and it is, therefore, directly aligned with the
needs of the industry and I think that far more emphasis needs
to be put on that level of training, not as an alternative to
traditional engineering degrees, but as something which needs
to be expanded to meet the needs of the industry.
Q317 Dr Harris: Dr Thompson, you
have got strategic partnerships with certain companies. Is that
about research or is there any link and is that about education
as well?
Dr Thompson: It can be about research
or training, so it depends what the company needs are, so certainly
with AstraZeneca we have a partnership to provide a different
sort of PhD student, so it is much more about business articulating
their needs, so we are very flexible on that. An awful lot, 40
per cent, of our portfolio on training is in partnership with
industry and that gives some very different inputs into what you
want to see and different outputs.
Q318 Dr Harris: How do you evaluate
that, the success, because you are investing public money there,
and what does the outcome show? Is it working?
Dr Thompson: The one big investment
we have had is in this engineering doctorate scheme which we evaluated
over the summer. The outputs were incredibly positive, both from
industry of being involved, the students that had gone through
the scheme with where they were now placed in companies and what
they were now earning and the feedback from the universities,
so much so that our Council has just taken a step back and said,
"Actually, what shall our portfolio of PhD training be?"
There is quite a lot of evidence coming through from the evaluation
of the engineering doctorate and other activities that a central
approach to PhD training, as opposed to individual academics working
for four years with their individual students, might give us things
which are actually more attractive to industry, so the team-working,
which you get if you are in a big research group, but you do not
necessarily get it, the communication skills, the working on industrially
enhanced problems, the ability to have to report back your findings
regularly rather than just wait for the end when you write your
PhD thesis up, all of those things produce a skill set which actually,
we think, is something quite valuable.
Q319 Dr Harris: And now we have got
that in the written evidence. My last question is around the funding
of university engineering departments. Could you say, Professor
Clarke, whether you think there is adequate funding on a per-student
basis or a departmental basis and, if not, what can be done about
that? From which courses should the money be taken to properly
fund engineering, say, media studies, for instance?
Professor Clarke: The ETB and
ETC have just produced a report where they did an in-depth study
of five universities to look at the funding for engineering courses
and it demonstrated that there was some 14 per cent under-funding
and that was met by the recruitment of overseas students, so we
are very critical on overseas students to make sure—
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