Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)Department Debates - View all Chi Onwurah's debates with the Department for Education
Engineering Careers
Chi Onwurah Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Nadine Dorries
That is a very good point. I had not thought of going down the age range even further, but obviously that is a point for consideration.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I worked as an engineer myself before coming into Parliament, so I know not only the fulfilling careers that engineering provides, but the importance of inspiring young people into engineering. On that point, I urge the hon. Lady to look at a scheme called Primary Engineer, which was launched in the north-east last Friday—I believe that it exists across the country—and which puts businesses into primary schools, because that is where we really need to start inspiring young people into engineering.
Nadine Dorries
I will certainly take that point on board and feed it back to Andy Robinson.
I am impressed by how Autotech has tackled the problem itself, by setting up its own Autotech academy, its own apprenticeship scheme within the business, its own school within the business. It has been reaching out to schools and advertising the academy as a way to bring young people in and start doing that work—the very things that we are talking about—but it still finds attracting young people incredibly difficult.
Our country has a rich heritage in this area. When I was a girl—I am quite old now—[Hon. Members: “No!”] I am afraid I am. In Liverpool when I was a girl growing up, careers in engineering—electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and civil engineering—were very attractive to people I was at school with. In fact, those were the kinds of career that boys in particular wanted to go into.