Richard Mcclelland
Scotland is in desperate need of engineers, says
STIRLING played host to Technical Academy Scotland yesterday, bringing together major employers in the private and the public sectors to witness the launch of a new private learning provider. Technical Academy Scotland will deliver academic and vocational programmes across a wide range of construction disciplines.
As Scotland edges out of recession, voices across the construction and engineering sectors are warning of a potentially disastrous skills shortage which could hamper the full recovery of these areas of our economy. This is reinforced by the findings of a survey we have undertaken that indicates almost half (46 per cent) of employers across the public and private sectors are facing significant difficulties finding skilled technicians and engineers.
Current estimates indicate that the UK needs to double the pipeline of new recruits into the engineering, construction and manufacturing professions by 2020.
With a quarter of the Scottish construction workforce likely to retire within the next 10-20 years, according to the Office for National Statistics, and the Royal Academy of Engineering forecasting that 40,000 engineering graduates are needed annually across the UK, there are concerns that not enough people are pursuing a career in engineering and construction.
It is against this background that we are launching Technical Academy Scotland to assist in addressing these shortages.
In Scotland, the challenge is not only at the technical level but is a more fundamental one. It is vital that we ensure that there is a greater take-up of maths, science, technology and engineering subjects at school and university. This will feed through into the development of our construction professionals of tomorrow. We must also ensure that young people are made aware of the employment opportunities on offer in construction and engineering.
Organisations such as Technical Academy Scotland are working hard to increase the number of women taking up jobs in engineering and construction. There is no denying the fact that women are under-represented at a time when industry needs to be tapping into every potential talent pool. l Richard McClelland is director of Technical Academy Scotland
FIGURES released by the BBC reveal that, in 2012-13, 300 children aged 11 or under were admitted to A&E units across the UK after drinking too much. A total of 6,500 under-18s ended up in hospital as a result of alcohol. Of the five health boards with the highest number of under-18s admissions, three of them were in Scotland.
We are right to be concerned about this. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to the damaging effects of alcohol. The earlier teenagers start drinking and getting drunk, the greater their risk of alcohol dependence later in life.
But should we really be surprised that primary school children across the country are ending up drunk in hospital? Alcohol has never been more affordable, more available or more heavily promoted than it is today. Liberalisation and deregulation of alcohol sales have been the logical outcomes of market-orientated economic policies that have dominated political discourse over the last few decades.
The result is that our children grow up in a physical and social environment that is excessively pro-alcohol. We want young people to show restraint in their own drinking yet tolerate an environment that promotes both access and excess. We lambast parents for their irresponsible behaviour but stay silent on the subject of the irresponsible pricing and promotion policies of the big alcohol producers and retailers. Is it not time that we acknowledged the culpability of corporate interests in both creating and sustaining the normalisation of excessive drinking in our society?
Health scientists are increasingly drawing attention to an inconvenient truth. Transnational corporations are now major drivers of global epidemics of ill health and death. We hear from doctors in India that the increasing production, distribution and promotion of alcohol in their country has led to alcoholrelated harm becoming a major public health concern. At the same time, we learn that Diageo has acquired a majority share in India’s United Spirits.
Tobacco companies spend millions opposing governments around the world who are seeking to introduce plain packaging, whilst Coca-Cola runs an advertising campaign claiming that “All calories count, no matter where they come from”. Coca-Cola’s calories come from sugar: ten teaspoons in a single can containing no other nutrients. Coca-Cola seeks to position itself as part of the solution to obesity despite the fact that nutrition experts regard food and beverage companies as having caused the obesity epidemic in the first place.
Scientists are beginning to document how the alcohol, ultra-processed food and drink industries use similar strategies to the tobacco industry to undermine effective public health policies and present themselves as part of the solution. This week, academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine visited Edinburgh to present the findings of a study which examined submissions made by the alcohol industry to the Scottish Government’s alcohol consultation in 2008. The authors concluded that whilst there was a broad consensus internationally among alcohol scientists that the most effective measures to reduce alcohol harm were to raise prices, control availability and restrict marketing, the alcohol industry “ignored, misrepresented or otherwise sought to undermine the content of the international evidence base on effective policies in order to influence policy”.
Fortunately these tactics did not prevent our MSPs from approving legislation to implement minimum unit pricing. However, we are now faced with a legal challenge from the alcohol industry as they employ the same delaying tactics that were used for decades by the tobacco industry.