Future Electrical Engineers. gain young people's interest in being electrical engineers

Transcription

1 Future Electrical Engineers gain young people's interest in being electrical engineers Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Michael Schanz Electricity 2010, Eilat, Israel Nov. 18th / 1

2 Growing Relevance of Electrical Engineers Electrical engineers cannot solve society s challenges alone but they play a decisive role for their solution Growing penetration of everyday life by key technologies Information- and Communication Technologies Micro- and Nanotechnologies Second Electrical Era, All Electric Society Climate change and shortage of resources as economic driver for Green Growth More regenerative energy facilities Efforts for better energy efficiency Smart Grids Trends in displays and lighting E-Mobility Ambient Assisted Living as answer to demographic changes, innovations in medical technologies Since 20 years: growing ratio of engineers in German industrial companies Assumption/conclusion: We need rather more than less electrical engineers in the future / 2

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5 Unemployed electrical engineers will be no future potential to fill the gap / 5

6 Where is the potential of young people for beeing future engineers? The vast majority of youth is interested in consuming technology, e. g. high-end gadgets - consumptive interest The minority (in Germany 30%) has also an explorative interest in technology How does it work? / 6

7 Potential of future engineers is poorly tapped 30 % 16 % 11 % 8 % 2 % 1 % of young people are generally interested in technology are especially interested in electro- or informationtechnology or adjacent fields are interested in becoming an engineer study an engineering discipline study electrical engineering become an electrical engineer sources: VDE calculations, Federal Statistical Office 2008, study Nachwuchsbarometer Technikwissenschaften / 7

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9 Gap in images of electrical engineering profession Amongst People: High Reputation Image amongst students of EE: versatile, good career opportunities, good salary, assured job, communicative, self responibility Self Image of Electrical Engineers: creative, meaningful for society, international, communicative Extrinsic Image: pupils doubt about that Gap of information amongst youth Communication Challenge / 9

10 Making the youth beeing interested in technology 1000 Projects in Germany in recent years Different volumes Different types: junior engineer academy, technology parks, girl s day Different target groups: all pupils, technical interested, talents, kindergarten All Projects are classified, many projects deeply evaluated Database for having best practices and building networks Projects are rarely sustainable Impact is hard to measure Recommendations: More sustainability, follow up events/projects including a variety of organizations Continuous technical curriculum at school (integrated in nat. sc. or math) Differencing target groups: Talents (deeper focus), Sight Seers (need interdisciplinary content), Uninterested (projects are useless) / 10

11 More students in EE in total but more drop-out and less popularity? / 11

12 Popularity index comparison to other disciplines The winner is Mechanical Engineering Assumptions why: Mechanics is better imaginable Mechanics is haptic EE is mostly fully integrated and encapsulated Diversification of Electro-Technology, can only hardly be overviewed Typical careers of socialization towards Eletrical Engineering disappear / 12

13 Typical examples of socialization towards electrical engineering are disappearing / 13

14 ROSE Study, Relevance of Science Education, Svein Sjorberg, Univ. of Oslo, Norway / 14

15 What about girls? About 10% of student beginners in EE in Germany are women, many of them do not make it into the job after graduation Girls have less technical self confidence (high correspondence of choosing engineering discipline course) ROSE* study says The more developed country, the less interest in working in technology and the more divergence between gender Attitudes cannot easily be changed: Girls: Working with and help people Boys: Working with things, machines and tools Common: All students want to do something meaningful, fitting their values. But they do not find this in engineering. Again: Communication Challange, but make sure not to distort the nature of engineering not to cheat young people Young People want to be somebody rather than to do something Visible role models, especially for female engineers (hen egg problem) *) ROSE Study, Relevance of Science Education, Svein Sjorberg, Univ. of Oslo, Norway / 15

16 Summary Electrical engineers are needed today and we need even more in the future- demographic disaster in 2020 Unemployment of EE approaches zero More beginners, more drop out, less popularity despite of high efforts of organizations If interested, mechanical engineering wins special EE strategy, if promoting engineering Less interest in working in the field of technology in developed countries saturation Gap between extrinsic images and real engineering profession Different attitudes between genders Enormous communication task especially for women (engineers are communicative and are meaningful for the society) More role models (e. g. key experts having personality) needed, especially female / 16