As last month’s The Big Bang: UK Scientists and Engineers Fair, aimed at stimulating youngsters’ interest in engineering and engineering careers, got under way at London’s ExCeL (see also page 6), an organisers’ survey revealed that “two in three UK parents lack knowledge to encourage their children into skilled careers”.
While medicine, science, and engineering apparently topped a poll of the careers parents “dreamt their sons and daughters would follow”, the survey suggested that 68% of UK parents were “holding back” from encouraging their children to consider them due to their own lack of knowledge about these fields – a finding the Big Bang team said had “strong implications for the country’s future economic growth”. Of 3,000 UK parents with children aged 4-17 interviewed, a third (31%) had “no idea” about the jobs available in these areas, with one in five (19%) finding science and engineering “too difficult to comprehend”. The Big Bang team said the findings further highlighted a gender divide, with a quarter of parents deeming a science career most suited to boys, and even more (36%) regarding engineering as “man’s work”. A further 10% still labelled scientists and engineers as “geeks”, with the same number saying they would prefer their children to follow “the TV talent route”. The team warned that “this gap in knowledge could have an overwhelming impact on young people’s aspirations, and the future state of the economy”.
