Technology is the future

Germany is reverting to a nation of poets and philosophers—not out of any inherent desire to do so but because so few young people are now studying technical subjects. Ten years ago, one in five wanted to be an engineer. Today, the figure is down to 15 percent. Law, economics and social sciences, even languages and cultural studies apparently hold more promise for today’s young people than a career in engineering.

FROM EXCESS TO EXIGENCY
That should come as no surprise after years in which a glut of engineering graduates flooded a weak labor market where civil and mechanical engineers in particular were left high and dry.

Consequently, high school graduates abandoned a career choice that seemed devoid of prospects and triggered what labor market researchers casually refer to as a “selfregulating period”: oversupply was soon followed by undersupply. With just 90 new career entrants to replace every 100 engineers on the point of retirement, employers are urgently seeking new talent. In 2007 a political alarm began to sound when the Ministry of Education proclaimed that Germany’s technology base would be at risk unless up to 12,000 more engineers were trained each year. The situation among civil engineers is especially worrisome, with the number of graduates down by 21 percent compared with 1997.

COMING TO STUDY IN GERMANY
German engineering degree courses enjoy an outstanding international reputation. No other subject attracts so many students to Germany. One in five graduates come from abroad,many of them from China. However, since integration is difficult and long-term residence and work permits are still hard to come by, few of them choose to stay.The obvious answer is that Germany’s new generation of engineers must come primarily from within its own borders. So the appetite for technical subjects ideally needs to be whetted at school. And yet the prime target group of young people about to choose their degree courses and careers has been increasingly neglected in recent years. According to a survey, high school students aged between 15 and 17 regard engineering as boring and obsessed with detail, a job for pen pushers with meager salary expectations. Worse still, physics, chemistry and mathematics— good grounding for a technical degree—are considered difficult and best avoided in order to maintain good overall grades. Parents and teachers are failing to communicate much enthusiasm for engineering courses. The reason would appear to be that the profession has changed so radically in recent decades that it is a closed book for many adults. And high schools have problems of their own to contend with, including the pressure resulting from Germany’s weak performance in the PISA study and the increasingly dense curriculum prompted by the new eight-year secondary education program. Teachers have neither the time nor the energy to spend on content not directly related to their curriculum.

TECHNOLOGY IS THE FUTURE
This is precisely the issue addressed by an initiative entitled “Technology is the Future” which seeks to interest teachers, parents and young people in engineering careers. In cooperation with the Voith group and Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway, Bilfinger Berger has set up the initiative as a nonprofit company. In the coming months the founding members intend to recruit more companies willing to make a joint, long-term commitment to the cause. Already Liebherr, Kärcher and Herrenknecht have come on board. Initial plans include advertising in school magazines and a web site. Further activities will follow.

GOOD PROSPECTS
According to Beate Raabe of the Federal Employment Service BfA, the market for engineers in the coming years will be “very strong.”The development opportunities are varied, with creativity and team spirit in great demand. Potential earnings are also increasingly attractive. So it is all the more important to give young people an insight into a profession that does not feature in traditional education. Schools in turn will profit from an encounter with the world of work. How often, after all, do mathematics and physics teachers find themselves explaining why they torment their students with such highly complex formulae? If they could only demonstrate how engineers use such knowledge to shape the world, it might give them an ace up their sleeve.

(Text: Daniela Simpson)