Not-for-profit organisation EngineeringUK has renewed calls on the government to invest £40 million to improve access to careers provision for students in schools and colleges in England.
With support from the Sutton Trust, EngineeringUK has made the point that greater investment alongside a new careers strategy will enable more young people to understand the opportunities available in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers.
Calls for additional investment were made on the back of EngineeringUK’s report Securing the future: careers provision in schools and colleges in England, which highlighted the impact a lack of funding has on schools’ ability to deliver STEM careers provision.
Dr Hilary Leevers, chief executive of EngineeringUK, said: “Improving young people’s knowledge of the variety of roles available in engineering, and the pay they could expect is key to attracting more young people from more diverse backgrounds into engineering and technology.”
Both ‘Securing the future’ and ‘Paving the way’, a recent report from the Sutton Trust, argue that a new national careers strategy with more funding behind it would support the drive to build back better and ’level up’ across the UK in a post-Covid world.
James Turner, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, said: “Low social mobility also has a cost – not only socially around unfairness and inequality, but also in the hard economic terms of failing to harness the talents of all sections of society.
“The term ‘social mobility’ is common-place now and the rallying cry of ‘levelling up’ is gathering momentum.”