Dire warning to the government

16 industry heavyweights at organisations including JCB, Toshiba, Siemens, Sony and Boeing have issued a dire warning to the government over its plans to downgrade an engineering qualification for young people.

The senior executives say that they are "surprised and stunned" at the move to downgrade the relatively new Engineering Diploma for 14 to 19 year-olds from its current value of five GCSEs to one.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they point out that the UK will fail to ramp up its engineering capability, unless the government puts serious effort into developing appropriate technical training for young people and promoting the profession to make it more attractive. They also state that, should the it go ahead and devalue the qualification, as threatened, it will undermine efforts to develop a future pipeline of apprentices, technicians and engineers.
In the letter, headed by Mike Short, president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the business leaders says: "The Engineering Diploma is widely recognised as a significant route to providing the crucial technical and practical skills that young people will need to build a Britain that can compete effectively and internationally where technology can make such a difference to our digital world."
They continue: "The engineering community is surprised and stunned at the Government's plan for downgrading the value of the existing Engineering Diploma after so little time [it was only introduced in 2008] since it came into existence."

Author
Brian Wall

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