Scrap tuition fees for UK engineering students, says ACE

The Association for Consultancy and Engineering has called on the government to scrap tuition fees for engineering courses in a bid to stave off a skills crisis in the sector.

Talking on their website, Nelson Ogunshakin, ACE chief executive said: “The industry is working to close the gap in the salaries between engineering and other comparable professions to make engineering careers more attractive. Until this is achieved we need, as a country, to incentivise engineering as a career. Waiving tuition fees for engineering courses will increase the demand for those courses and ultimately increase the number of professional engineers the nation so badly needs,”

He added that“Multiple precedents for this change already exist,A similar system has already been implemented in the United States, and the UK government have for some time been offering this incentive for those completing teacher training. This issue has also been raised recently in parliament during the current Universities and Skills Committee hearings on engineering skills - a positive sign that the change is coming closer.”

“We are entering a critical period for our education system; maybe our last chance to get these policies right before highly-skilled jobs start to disappear overseas. This is a radical but proportionate proposal and I urge all engineering organisations and government to work to make this proposal a reality,” Ogunshakin concluded.