Admissions Working Group Report for EPC Committee December 2007

Nuffield Foundation

The Admissions WG last met on 6 December.  A major part of the meeting was taken up with a presentation and discussion with Dr David Barlex on the work of the Nuffield Foundation in promoting STEM in schools and colleges.  One interesting area in which they are working is with D&T teachers to promote electronics and a systems approach to D&T.  This is very welcome as D&T departments tend to be focussed mainly on craft skills.  A meeting is to be arranged to follow up on the national initiatives in this area including the Electronics in Schools Strategy.

National Engineering Programme

The situation with the London Engineering Project (LEP) is that the Government has decided for a joint national roll-out across all STEM subjects with a strong WP emphasis.  Consequently, the LEP will be receiving some interim funds for approximately 18 months while the similar Chemistry, Physics and Maths pilot projects catch up.  Much discussion is ongoing regarding the pros and cons of this decision.

Transition between School and College

We have put a high priority on the problems of transition between school and university and it is suspected that the cultural shock is greater for students without family experience of university education.  It is very difficult to obtain statistics on early withdrawals (prior to the HESES return) as these students are statistically treated as no-shows.  The LEP intends to look at improving the match between school/college and HE – both prior to and following the start of university education.  We are planning to invite Mark Williams from the Educational Development Trust (EDT), who is working in this area, to the next AWG meeting.

Admission Tutors’ Workshop

The next workshop in May will focus on both home and international student recruitment.  We hope to have Sue Pope the Maths specialist from QCA to talk about curriculum changes in mathematics and Wes Streeting of the NUS on transition issues.

Further Maths Network

I have met with Charlie Stripp of the Further Maths Network (FMN) as a follow up to the MEI-IET meeting last May.  It has been agreed to pilot some activities linking engineering with mathematics at Westminster as prototypes for dissemination to other engineering departments.  The activities planned include: events for Year 10/11 and for Year 12 pupils, professional development courses for maths teachers and ESA/UAS student ambassadors.  Inclusion of other departments in the pilot activity would be welcome!

Dik Morling
10 December 2007

Admissions Working Group Report on EEA/Shape the Future developments – December 2007

Longitudinal Study

Since the last meeting of the Admissions Working Group, effort has been focused on trying to obtain sponsorship for the Longitudinal Study of what kinds of intervention are likely to have the greatest impact in raising student participation, engagement and career choice. A reply is still awaited from John Holman (National STEM Director) regarding his advice and, ideally, support. However, a number of agencies have offered to contribute to the study should one major sponsor not be found.

IEEE Conference

The paper written jointly by Fred Maillardet, Fiona Martland and Dik Morling entitled Attracting more entrants into engineering – the UK perspective appeared to be well received at the IEEE conference in Munich in November 2007 on Meeting the Growing Demand for Engineers and their Educators 2010-2020. The conclusion from the conference was that a lack of interest in careers in engineering has become a serious problem in all the ‘developed countries’, including France, Germany and Italy. The need for a serious longitudinal study of the kind we have been advocating for some considerable time was (once again) suggested by the keynote speaker as necessary, this view being endorsed by delegates.

FJM  3.12.07