This year Solihull College & University Centre is celebrating national Women in Engineering day on Friday 23rd June. The day focuses attention on the range of careers in engineering and technical roles for women, and celebrates the achievements of women engineers.
This year the College will be partnering engineering companies with schools in Solihull so that a network of female engineers can share their enthusiasm for engineering and work on developing a stronger school/employer relationship for the WISE West Midlands Hub.
The WISE (Women into science and engineering) hub which the College helped launch enables and energises people in business, industry and education to increase the participation, contribution and success of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)
Confirmed partnerships this year include Couch Perry Wilkes LLP with Langley School and St Augustine’s Catholic School, PM Group with Fordbridge Primary School, UTC Aerospace and Parker Hannifin with St Peters School, Interserve with Lyndon School, and Jaguar Land Rover with Arden School.
The College has been working closely with Hannah Colson at Solihull Metropolitan Council to develop school links and the event will also be supported by STEM Learning in Lyndon School. Employers looking to work with schools will be visiting the institutions to attend assemblies and classes. Each employer is bringing an apprentice or engineer in to discuss the industry with students. The aim is to introduce engineering to girls in schools and to advise and educate teachers too. Those companies visiting schools on Friday are Interserve, Couch Perry Wilkes, Parker Hannifin, JLR and PM Group.
Alongside the school events, Rosa Wells, Director of Employment and Skills at Solihull College & University Centre and cofounder of WISE will be presenting at The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Conference in Birmingham at Austin Court.
The ‘9% is not Enough’ event centring on the fact that female representatives in engineering in the UK stands at only 9% will host workshops and presentations aimed at showing employers how to recruit in engineering and how to work better with schools to inspire a new generation. Rosa will be presenting alongside fellow industry representatives Amanda Murphy, Senior Future Talent Acquisition Consultant at Jaguar Land Rover and Eva Fryc Employer Support Manager from Tomorrow’s Engineers. The three will be carrying out a workshop titled ‘Inspiring a Generation: How to work with Schools to interest more 5 – 19 year old girls with a career in Engineering’ for 35 employers. The workshop will be on recruiting in Engineering.
Rosa states, ‘There are currently big cultural issues in the UK surrounding the perception of what engineering is and especially engineering apprenticeships. We are engaging with the WISE in the form of a regional hub, working with the network of outreach organisations locally to inform, action and follow successful journeys of women in engineering’.
More about WISE can be found at the website
Find out more about Solihull College & University Centre’s Engineering courses.
