Hudds professor invited to IMechE Primary Engineers launch
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:18:00 BST
Professor John Allport attends the House of Lords launch for IMechE’s Institution of Primary Engineers designed to enthuse the next generation of engineers and scientists
A UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield professor is closely involved in a scheme to ensure that young children are fired with enthusiasm for engineering.
The project is vital for Britain’s industrial future, says Professor John Allport (pictured right), who heads the University’s Turbocharger Research Institute. “We need to address this issue now, as the UK is forecast to have a shortage of engineers for the next 20 years,” he says.
Professor Allport is a long-standing member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and serves on its Academic Advisory Panel, set up to provide expert guidance to the Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The IMechE – in tandem with other partners – has funded the formation of two new organisations – the Institution of Primary Engineers and the Institution of Secondary Engineers. They will work to ensure that more and more youngsters develop enthusiasm for subjects that will lead to engineering careers.
The schemes were launched at an event held at the House of Lords. It was attended by a select number of engineers, business executives and educationalists. Professor Allport – whose extensive career in engineering has included key posts at leading firm Cummins Turbo Technologies – was in attendance, on behalf of the University of Huddersfield.
The House of Lords event heard a sequence of speeches which stressed the need to catch the imagination of children as early as possible. Professor Allport has been involved in educational outreach himself and fully supports the need to engage with primary age pupils.
“Secondary schools are the feeder to universities, but by the time youngsters get to secondary school a lot of them have either been dissuaded from science and engineering or have never been encouraged to take an interest, so by that time it is already too late. So they need to be enthused about the subjects in primary schools.”
The key is to get children interested in how things work, continued Professor Allport, who has himself used a range of ingenious gadgets such as balloon and rocket powered cars to stimulate interest among primary school youngsters.
“If you start off by telling them that to be an engineer you need to do hard things like maths and physics, they begin to perceive it as being difficult. But if you start by using exciting things like rocket-propelled cars then they develop enthusiasm, and the actual mathematical tools that they need will come later.”
