February 2017
Featured in this insight: Central government & non-department public bodies, Education, Manufacturing, engineering & industrial
Survey finds STEM subjects are building in popularity: A recent engineering survey by BAE Systems has revealed that the efforts to change the public’s views of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects is starting to pay off, with 51 per cent of parents revealing that they would encourage their child to embark on a career in STEM.
The engineering industry, as well as teachers, engineering organisations and the government have been trying hard in the recent years to attract more people to get into STEM subjects.
The survey revealed that 55 per cent of parents are actively trying to make their child study a STEM subject at school. A further 61 per cent of the parents said that they feel that their child has more opportunities to study a STEM subject, in comparison to when they were in education.
BAE Systems spoke to 592 parents of children aged between eight and 15 to uncover that 40 per cent of parents believe that there are enough resources on hand for parents to assist their offspring with STEM homework – 15 per cent even said there are too many resources!
Steve Fogg, BAE Systems’ Managing Director of Shared Services said that the survey findings were very encouraging and indicated that the industry is beginning to change the perceptions people have of the STEM industry.
Fogg further added that the engineering industry, alongside the government and education must work together to get more youngsters to think about a career in STEM.
He said that there is still a lot of work to be done to further promote STEM to young people and that there is no singular organisation which has the total power to do this – it must be a joint effort throughout the United Kingdom.
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