20.05.14
A skilled workforce is key to success, Baroness Kramer tells RTM
Creating a highly skilled workforce is essential to delivering the major rail infrastructure projects of the future, Baroness Kramer told RTM during Infrarail.
The Lib Dem peer said that it was imperative the industry and government create opportunities for today’s youth to embrace engineering in rail as a career.
She said that during a Women in Rail event last week, “three young girls came along because they won an engineering competition run by their school. However, they said without the competition, there was no engineering element in their general curriculum”.
“We have to build into our whole education system that there is a real future in rail and that it is exciting, but understanding the way we make these changes is crucial,” she told RTM.
The transport minister conceded that greater cross-department work is needed to achieve this. “But I do believe the message is slowly getting there, however there is still work to do,” said Baroness Kramer.
Looking ahead, she said: “Recently I was out with some of the HS2 engineers and we were looking at a major project and they said ‘you realise of course that the project manager on this is currently taking their GCSEs’ because we are looking so far into the future with some of these programmes.
“So we have to get those youngsters who are making their decisions at school to focus on engineering opportunities. We need engineers in their thousands, not just the hundreds.”
Baroness Kramer was hopeful that the High Speed Training Academy, which has received a lot of submissions, will help stimulate this providing young people with the training to create long-term careers in an innovative industry.