Call to change how we promote engineering to teenagers

'Five Tribes: Personalising Engineering Education' has called on Government, teachers, industry and Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) organisations to take into account young people's diverse values and attitudes to try and inspire them about engineering. Peter Finegold, head of education and skills at the IMechE, said: "The UK is struggling with a dramatic shortfall of engineers. In 2010 it was calculated that demand to maintain economic growth meant producing 190,000 engineering graduates and technicians every year till 2020. Last year we produced only 51,000, of our 87,000 target for graduates alone, and time is ticking by." He said engineering was a creative subject, yet our education system too often segregated those it saw as potential engineers from those it deemed artists: "It is clear that if we are to meet this shortfall, we need to think differently about who our audience is." The report identifies five distinct student types, based on their values, interests and attitudes to STEM subjects, and calls on Government, schools and industry to develop different approaches to inspire them about engineering. Finegold added: "If we are serious about meeting the UK's engineering skills shortage we can no longer rely on appealing just to the small proportion of people who are passionate about STEM subjects. "Our research shows that young women for example, tend to have a greater affinity to engineering connected to design, medicine, sports and the environment and this should be reflected in the way STEM subjects are presented to them in school."