Jaguar Land Rover Schools Programme Supports the Campaign to Promote Engineering at British Science Festival

GAYDON, UNITED KINGDOM – Sept 20, 2010: Jaguar Land Rover has this week been showcasing three projects that are promoting science, technology, engineering and maths in schools across the UK.

The projects – the Jaguar Land Rover Education Business Partnership Centres, the Jaguar GT in Schools Design Challenge and the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge – have been educating visitors to the British Science Festival in Birmingham (14-19 September) on the need to encourage UK schoolchildren to embrace science and engineering learning. Among those who visited Jaguar Land Rover at the Festival was David Willets MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, who attended the event on Thursday 16th.

Jaguar Land Rover has designed each of its educational programmes to inspire and engage teachers and children in practical problem-solving to highlight the importance of an array of subjects and the ways they transfer into the car industry. Each project links into the national curriculum and supports the Campaign to Promote Engineering - closely following Government initiatives to raise the profile and enhance the skills and talent agenda in the UK

Jaguar Land Rover’s Group Chief Engineer Bob Joyce said: “The title engineer does not carry the same positive image and respect in the UK that it does in countries like Germany or Japan. This means young people often don’t consider a career in engineering when they are making their subject choices at school. Added to this, engineering undergraduates are often targeted by financial institutions at recruitment fairs, primarily because of the quality of their thinking, numerical training and planning skills. This means the countries lacks the number and variety of engineers a business like ours needs.

“At Jaguar Land Rover we run a series of programmes that aim to promote young people’s enjoyment and understanding of maths and science-based education and training. We believe this forms an important component in a series of touch points we have with education that runs right through from junior schools to advance research facilities. It is critical that we maintain the science talent pool in this country both to support businesses like our own and the automotive industry as a whole.”

In addition to the projects showcased at The British Science Festival, Jaguar Land Rover also runs the Maths in Motion Challenge, an annual competition for children aged 9 years and upwards that has become well established in the calendars of many schools as a way of engaging children of all abilities in exciting and motivating mathematics based projects. Students work together in small teams and compete against each other to win a 'Grand Prix'-type race using a wide range of basic mathematical skills and practical applications.