Third Annual Engineering Week Set for Success
By admin
Issued on behalf of Careers Wales
Having proved a huge success with upwards of 3000 school pupils from across Wales who have already enjoyed the National Engineering Week experience, the third annual event of its kind is due to take place next week.
Once again, more than 1500 school pupils – aged 13 and 14 – will take part in the event, which is organised jointly by fforwm and Careers Wales, and will take place between 26-30th November.
Hosted at further education colleges throughout the country, the aim of the week is to spark an appetite for engineering and to encourage youngsters to explore all the options open to them – from aeronautics and automotive to electronic, manufacturing and mechanical engineering.
With a glaring skills shortage within high-end precision engineering becoming increasingly apparent, Careers Wales Executive Director, Lesley Rees, feels that events such as Engineering Week Wales have a crucial role to play in demonstrating to young people exactly where a future career in engineering could lead.
“I said this last year and the problem has not gone away – in simple terms, Wales needs more engineers and, particularly those who will go on to fill the higher level positions,” said Lesley.
“Engineering Week Wales and its practical taster sessions provide an excellent platform from which to make young people aware of the sheer diversity of jobs which exist within the industry, at a very important decision making time in their academic careers.
“The feedback from both of the previous events has been extremely positive and we’re very much looking forward to a similarly successful event this year.”
Chair of fforwm’s Engineering Network, Barry Liles, said: “Engineering Week Wales is a highly practical way of bringing a realistic and hands-on taster of engineering to school pupils, using state-of-the-art equipment. Schools and colleges from all across the country have supported the Week in previous years, and colleges are preparing as hard as ever for the huge interest that schools and their pupils are expected to show for the Week again this year.”
A range of stimulating and exciting activities will take place at each of the participating centres. At a number of centres, teams will manufacture scaled down racing cars – and will then have the opportunity to test their cars by racing them in their teams. Winning teams from each centre will be awarded a trophy to take back to their school. In addition, they will also be able to enter a nationwide challenge, which is being organised as part of Wales Rally GB on Saturday 1 December.
Deputy Skills Minister John Griffiths said: “Engineering is a strong part of Wales’ economy. We have to make sure that our young people understand the wide range of varied careers that are available in engineering in order to be able to meet the huge competition from other countries across the world.
“I’m delighted to see so many organisations working together to bring an exciting Engineering Week to so many young people. I wish Engineering Week Wales great success and I very much hope that budding engineers will be inspired to go on from Engineering Week to become Wales’ engineers of the future.”
