Encouraging children to take an interest in science and engineering should start from the age of five, according to leaders of industry. They argue that simple exercises in primary schools would help youngsters to appreciate how maths and physics play an essential role in everyday life and awaken them to the idea that careers in these professions are far from grim and grimy.

“Old ideas like the great egg race, getting an egg from one point to another along an elastic band, and projects with sand and water can really excite children,” says Barbara Smith, who recruits graduates to AMEC’s nuclear business. “We also need teachers who can inspire children and to persuade young engineering graduates, who can relate to the kids, to go into schools.”

BAE Systems, the UK’s largest employer of engineers, also starts early by taking a roadshow to schools and reaching 15,000 pupils aged 9 to 13 each year to encourage the take-up of science subjects at GCSE.

Graham Schuhmacher, head of learning services at Rolls-Royce, says: “Once children reach the age of 13 or 14, it is too late to catch them, especially girls, who are talked out of doing maths and science because ‘it’s boring’. We start working with children in schools at the age of five, creating team games to show that maths can be fun, science interesting and engineering exciting.”

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A combination of physical strength, a punishing training regimen and intellectual insight certainly reaps results

BACKGROUND

• A vision to inspire

• Crying out for new recruits

• Make science fun to catch them young

• Drive to beat engineering skills shortage

Rolls-Royce opens its annual science prize to all schools, from nurseries to sixth-form colleges. Schuhmacher is also a strong supporter of the young apprenticeship scheme, under which 14-year-olds go into the company for one day a week for two years and work alongside full apprentices, applying what they have learnt to their maths and sciences courses at school.

“Some people have dismissed this scheme as being attractive only to the unacademic but that is not true in engineering. School heads want to get more pupils on it because it has made a difference to their aptitude and exam results.”

Schuhmacher was a member of the group that devised the new diploma in engineering and says that it is semi-practical and more focused on exploring theoretical engineering. “We know the model can work but we will have to wait to see if it pays off quickly,” he adds.

One executive who hopes it will is Maggie Aderin-Pocock, head of the optical instrumentation group at Astrium, an expanding part of the EADS company. Astrium faces a shortfall of 400 engineers. She says: “I am very excited by the diploma. It is an excellent idea and deserves as much publicity as it can get to put young people on the path to a career where opportunities are fantastic.”

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