ETB worries where apprentices of the future will come from

A new report from The Engineering and Technology highlights concerns over Government targets for doubling the number of apprenticeships by 2020. The report also underlines the need for Government, business, industry and the wider engineering community to work together to improve Further Education for the benefit of the economy.

The Engineering and Technology Board (ETB) today launched Engineering UK 2007, its annual review of the engineering and technology labour market.

This year s report reveals a number of significant challenges to UK engineering, in particular a 26% decline in the number of learners taking Further Education engineering courses, including apprenticeships, over the last three years.

What s more, only three in five students who take up apprenticeships go on to complete them.


Engineering UK 2007 also reveals a 16% decline in the number of 16 year olds by 2018. This decline, coupled with increasing rates of participation in Higher Education, will leave a rapidly decreasing pool of potential apprentices to fulfil the Government s ambitious target of a 60% increase in apprenticeships by 2010/11.

On the positive side, there is a slow but steady growth in the number of pupils sitting chemistry, physics and maths A Levels and passing GCSE maths.

However,Dr John Morton, Chief Executive of the ETB, said:

Whilst the ETB welcomes recent Government investment in apprenticeships across all ages, many more apprenticeship places need to be made available for the over 25s in order to combat the 16% decline in school-leavers by 2018. In order to remain globally competitive, the engineering sector needs to attract career-movers and people in their twenties and thirties as well as highly motivated young people.
 

The ETB believes that the long-term solution to shortages of skilled engineers lies in Government, business, industry and the wider engineering community working together to widen access to engineering training at all levels and for all ages groups, as well as increasing capacity in the Further Education sector to cope with the demand created by current apprenticeship targets.