An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1985-1988: THE TOMBS YEARS 43Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB), and ‘Attitudes of Women’, a survey undertakenby MIL Research Ltd. The report and associated surveys continued to be in demand oversucceeding years and in 1986 and 1987 several conferences on this topic were held. Thesecond WISE bus set off from Parliament Square as an Industry Year project in mid 1986 ona nationwide technology tour, after being visited by several dozen Members from bothHouses. Financial aid was obtained from the Manpower Services Commission (MSC)towards the production of a career break video ‘The Other Half’; this was launched in theSpring of 1987 at a press conference held at the Careers Research and Advisory Council’s(CRAC) Career Break Conference. The video supplemented the EngC’s 1985 careers breakreport and highlighted the benefits to companies of retaining existing women engineers andtechnicians by providing career break schemes and attracting high calibre women intoengineering in the future.In 1986, to monitor the progress of WISE year, a survey was taken of first-year entrants toscience and engineering degree courses at universities and polytechnics. This showed asteady increase of women entering both engineering and science courses from 1982 to 1985.It was decided to repeat this survey annually. To support the WISE campaign a wide range ofpublicity materials was produced during 1987: for example, in May ‘Science and EngineeringDegree Courses – Women Entrants 1982/3 to 1986/7’, and in August an information sheet‘Women Into Science and Engineering’. In September ‘A Woman’s Touch’ poster, publishedby the EngC, aimed at 12-15 year olds, was distributed to every school in the UK. Laterduring 1987 a third WISE bus entered into operation setting off around the country withpromotional and educational materials prepared for a female readership. The co-operation ofthe Equal Opportunities Commission and the EITB assured a wide dissemination of themessage. A survey indicated that over the previous four years there had been an increasefrom 7.8% to 10.5% in women entering engineering degree courses. Nevertheless, skills’shortages continued to cause concern amongst employers and so the EngC, according tothe1987 Annual Report, determined that “the promotion of WISE will remain a vital crusadein support of Britain’s improving industrial competitiveness”Neighbourhood EngineersIn December 1986 the Rt Hon Kenneth Baker MP, Secretary of State for Education andScience, launched the EngC’s ‘Opening Windows on Engineering’ scheme on a nationalscale, thereby expanding the EngC’s activities in the nineteen regions. ‘Opening Windows’was a free service, aimed to demonstrate to 12-15 boys and girls (and their teachers) thatengineering was not only a respectable and worthwhile career but also a major wealth creatorfor Britain. During 1986 these efforts had linked with another significant notion,‘Neighbourhood Engineers’ that was being piloted in Cardiff and Plymouth. This involvedlocal registered engineers being attached to nearby schools to help teachers in a practicalway. As a result of the ‘Opening Windows’ scheme being confirmed as a priority for theECROs, a seminar was held in September 1987 for sixty representatives from the ECROsaround the UK. The seminar dealt with recruiting and training people under the age of 34 as“window openers”.In recognition of his pioneering activities in originally devising the ‘Opening Windows onEngineering’ scheme Kevin Walton of Stockport was presented with a certificate by SirFrancis Tombs in 1987. In succeeding years ‘Neighbourhood Engineers’ developedextensively, as we shall describe in Chapter 4.© Engineering Council UK 2004