Children generally engage in sport at a much earlier age than they do vocational subjects, so could this sporting enthusiasm be channeled more effectively to inspire engineers? BAE Systems certainly think so.
It has engaged in a long term tie-up with UK Sport and, as Eureka will report in the July issue, is helping British athletes in their bid for success at the Olympics. It is not just an altruistic venture of course. At a time when we have a well reported lack of engineers coming through the education system, it sees sport as an ideal way of influencing young minds. Nigel Whitehead, the company’s Group Managing Direct Programmes & Support, said at a joint UK Sport/BAE event: “The whole issue of inspiring the next generation translates universally because we need the next generation of engineers to be interested in science and technology and maths. And we need them to be interested before those subjects get difficult at school so they continue studying them, and we have a role in doing that. We have to keep feeding the pipeline and our relationship with UK Sport is helping us to do that.”
Olympic success is undoubtedly linked to enthusiasm for sport. If it has positive consequences for engineering then so much the better, and is it a model for other sports which are backed by excellence in engineering?