UTech pleads for more engineering internships
Published:Sunday | January 29, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
The University of Technology Jamaica (UTech) has pushed back at claims that engineering enrolment levels are down and that graduates are unable to find jobs, saying the data tells a different story.
At the same time, UTech has indicated that it is recruiting full-time and part-time lecturers from among industry members to staff some of its technical programmes, pointing to a shortage of professionals prepared to work full time in academia.
The university insists that its student graduates are in demand.
"Many receive jobs within six months (of graduation) and 90 per cent are employed in a year," said Dr Noel Brown, director of the mechanical programme and senior lecturer at the UTech School of Engineering.
"The more fundamental issue is that small enterprises have been struggling to survive in austere economic times and cannot hire. Government policies have not helped in boosting the productive sector. Unless growth in this sector is stimulated, the expectation of sustainable jobs cannot be realised," he said last Monday.
Treated as technicians
Brown was responding to comments by Nagibe Green of the Young Inventors Club at a JIE-UTech luncheon on January 18 that the industry was "not accepting of UTech graduates as up to scratch or as full engineers".
Engineering graduates, he said, were being treated more so as technicians.
"Due to the limited opportunities in scope that existed in the Jamaican industry, there has been a reduction in the number of students choosing to do engineering and many graduates are looking to go overseas to practise," Green said.
Brown said after an investigation with the schools placement office and a review of enrolment data that the concerns may be overstated.
"The Placement Office suggests that our graduates are in demand. Our students get assistance to find jobs through our Placement Office," the educator said.
"Civil engineering is in high demand across the Caribbean. Students are being trained and our student population in this area is growing."
He also denied that enrolment levels are down — "I am in disagreement," he said — but the data suggests it is, though only by eight per cent year on year or just three per cent when measured against 2009-10 enrolment levels.
There are 971 students currently enrolled in the School of Engineering, compared with 1,055 in 2010-11 and 1,003 the previous academic year.
What has become a problem, Dr Brown said, were limited opportunities to complete the practicum required for the UTech engineering degree as companies grow less willing to take students on board.
Only one company, Wisynco Group, is said to be in partnership with UTech to provide students with mentorship and workplace experience.
Established more than 15 years ago, the annual UTech-JIE luncheon is a forum for the two institutions discuss ways to promote and raise the status and profile of the engineering profession within academia and industry.
"With more support from industry, the university would be able to attract well-qualified faculty and 'in turn' graduate students who are more work ready to support industry upon graduation," said director of the cconstruction engineering programme, Lebert Langley.