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Schemes for GCSE and A-level Students
The Engineering Education Scheme: Overview
Since its introduction
in 1984, the Engineering Education Scheme
has been successful in motivating teams of
sixth form students to work on real
engineering problems.
The teacher's view
‘A hearts and minds
programme that brings together schools and
industry in a way that promotes greater
understanding on both sides for the mutual
benefit of the technology curriculum in
schools and the profession of engineering.’
Desmond May
Headteacher, Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School,
Aylesbury
The industrial manager's view
‘The Scheme presents
engineering as a living part of life and
work in general and places everybody under a
very good structure to achieve the best
possible outcome.’
W Dinnie
Manager, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals
The company engineer's view
‘It demands that a
clear plan of action, agreed by all, is
drawn up, that targets are set, and that
students are realistic about what they can
achieve in a certain timescale.’
David Gray
Company Engineer, British Gas
The student's view
‘The most valuable aspect of the Scheme was
the insight into what engineering actually
is. It encouraged me to be an engineer. It
prepared me for the projects I have had to
do at university and gave me the confidence
to know that an initially baffling problem
can be attempted and even understood.’
Jennifer Perrins
Former student, Lancaster Girls Grammar
School
Aims and organisation
The Engineering
Education Scheme has a simple mission: to
encourage a commitment by students of the
highest ability to professional engineering
as a diverse and stimulating career.
It does this by
setting up a series of collaborative
projects in which a professional engineer
from an industrial company liaises with and
advises a team of lower sixth form students
and their teacher over a period of four or
five months.
The students work as a
team on a real industrial problem for which
the company needs a solution. Additional
support is provided by the Scheme in the
form of an induction day and a residential
workshop at which project solutions are
developed. At the end of the project,
solutions are shown before an invited
audience at a presentation and assessment
day. The sponsoring company is asked to pay
a modest contribution to support the team
working with it.
Successes so far
Since its inception,
over 6000 sixth form students, around 700
schools and 600 industrial companies have
participated in the EES. The Scheme
demonstrates the value of building bridges
between schools and industry, and the
importance of introducing the
multi-disciplinary challenges of engineering
to the UK's most promising students.
For schools, there are
the curriculum, practical and public
relations benefits of having a local
industrial partner. For companies, there are
advantages in developing the management
skills of their engineers and in assessing
the potential of future employees. For
students, there is the opportunity to work
on a real-life engineering problem with a
tangible result at the end. For the
engineering profession, there is the welcome
prospect of the best young minds choosing
engineering as a career.
Project work
In some cases,
projects have led to new products being
patented, as in the case of the Flatmate,
the result of a new collaboration between
Luton Sixth Form College and British Gas. In
other cases, the objective has been to
improve the manufacturing process, as in the
study of flow soldering undertaken by
Chepstow Comprehensive School for Newbridge
Networks.
Some projects focus on
a social problem, such as children wandering
away from their parents and getting lost.
Others are strictly about production
matters, as in the project to develop a fuel
injection leak tester for the Ford Motor
Company in Belfast.
Whatever the project
undertaken, the Engineering Education Scheme
is playing a unique formative role in
shaping the engineers of tomorrow. As the
Scheme continues to grow, and as more
schools and students express their desire to
participate, so we need more sponsoring
companies from industry to join in this
exciting collaborative exercise.
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