A new survey conducted on behalf of BT has found that many students are still put off by science and technology subjects, despite efforts to boost their popularity. It found that 40% of students did not do science subjects at Leaving Cert level - or go on to study such subjects at third level - because they considered them too difficult. Meanwhile, the survey also showed that a third of students have no interest whatsoever in science or technology.
"As a technology company, BT needs science, technologists and engineers," said Shay Walsh, managing director of BT Ireland. "It's our life blood and encouraging students into these STEM subjects is really important for us." BT commissioned the survey as part of the launch of the 2018 BT Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition, which has encouraged students from around the country to undertake research projects for almost 54 years now.
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Mr Walsh believes that it has a critical role to play in promoting the take up of science and technology in schools and universities, which will help to boost the availability of the right employees down the line. "The exhibition itself encourages people to engage in those STEM subjects," he said. "For the survey over 500 third level students were interviewed, and of that the ones that had entered the BT Young Scientists Exhibition, nearly 80% of those went on to third level science subjects. It's really critical that that showcase remains and really drives those students towards entry into third level subjects in the sciences."
Mr Walsh said the BTYSE has grown considerably over its life time and now the number of applications far exceeds the amount of space available on the show itself. This in turn drives up the standard of entry. The organisation hopes to see the number of entries continue to climb for 2018, too, and is encouraging students to start the entry process in the coming weeks.
"When we started there was about 600 entries, last year there were 2,091," Mr Walsh said. "We can only exhibit 550 on the week so it gets harder and harder to enter every year - and the buzz gets bigger every year too. We had 65,000 paying members of the public through the doors last year, we were at maximum capacity through the RDS, so there's great interest in it."
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MORNING BRIEFS - Building materials group CRH has said it has seen a "satisfactory" start to 2017. In an interim management statment issued ahead of its AGM tomorrow, CRH said that its first quarter sales were up 4% compared with a strong first quarter of 2016 which benefited from very mild weather conditions across all its major markets. CRH said its group EBITDA for the seasonally less significant first half of the year is expected to be ahead of last year's figure of €1.12 billion.
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*** The number of job postings rose by 14% in the first quarter of the year, according to a survey by recruiters Cpl Resources. The company's latest Employment Market Monitor shows that the strongest pace of growth was in the accountancy, finance and banking sectors - which saw a 60% rise in job postings year on year. Science, engineering and supply chain postings were up by 19% but sales and marketing positions declined by 7% - the first dip since 2014. The monitor also found that there has been 21 consecutive quarters of jobs growth in sectors dominated by foreign direct investment.
