The government is stepping up its ambassadors scheme, designed to increase the flow of youngsters into the engineering workforce

The Science and Engineering Ambassadors Programme, created to encourage young people interested in engineering and science careers, is to grow by 50% over the next three years. The increase from 18,000 to 27,000 ambassadors will be backed by a funding rise of nearly £2m to £7.4m. The aim is to provide ambassadors for all schools and colleges in the UK and to improve the quality and diversity of the scheme by having representatives from all science, technology, engineering and maths disciplines and from all sections of society.

The ambassadors range from apprentices and technicians through to PhDs, and come from corporate, academic and government organisations. They work with students in several ways, including supporting school science and engineering clubs, assisting with science competitions and providing mentoring.

The science minister Ian Pearson, who announced the expansion of the programme, said: “It is the epitome of effective partnership working, with businesses of all sizes contributing enthusiastic and expert volunteers to serve as role models in schools.”

Ewere Odaro, who joined the scheme last year, is a graduate process engineer with MW Kellogg. Her activities have included talking to students about engineering as a career, leading them in engineering-related games and demonstrating science experiments to a school science club.

“I decided to become an ambassador because I remembered what I had to go through on my own at school in deciding what to study,” Odaro said. “I spoke to a lot of my older sister’s friends about engineering and I found it was really helpful hearing from somebody who was already studying in the area.

“It doesn’t take much of my time to be an ambassador and if I can provide any sort of clarity or advice to young people who are deciding what to study, then I feel like I’ve done my job.”

All ambassadors are checked by the Criminal Records Bureau and given training to help them to work effectively in a variety of school and college settings. They are asked to commit themselves to at least one year.

Original print headline - Sow the seeds of a career

Source

Building Sustainable Design