Teachers to get engineering work experience

The Teacher Industrial Partners' scheme (TIPS), launched in conjunction with Project ENTHUSE, the National Science Learning Centre and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), will see teachers receive two-week work placements in engineering firms around the UK. Peter Finegold, head of education and skills at the IMechE, said: "The aim with this scheme is to provide teachers with an authentic experience of what takes place in modern engineering and manufacturing organisations. "We want to see a cadre of STEM teachers who would be able to be confident not only to talk to their students about jobs in engineering, but also pass on their own personal knowledge and experience of their placements to their colleagues." A number of UK firms have already signed up to the initiative, including the Manufacturing Technology Centre and InterRail. TIPS was launched after an IMechE poll found that 42% of 2,030 people surveyed said careers advice in UK secondary schools was poor, with just 26% describing it as adequate and 10% believing it to be poor.