Foundation degree in aircraft engineering a new degree for a new age

There is a significant and escalating shortage of aircraft maintenance engineers. Employers have traditionally relied upon three principle sources of aircraft maintenance engineers: ready trained engineers from the armed services, in company apprentice training schemes and further education. In recent years the first two have dwindled and employers are increasingly looking to the education sector as a means of providing the necessary broad underpinning knowledge to support licence training. However, many employers and the CAA regard education as a poor fit to their requirements. Many employers feel that the UK education system is contributing to the problems of the sector. They believe that the expansion of higher education has led to a shortage of talented sixteen-year old school leavers entering apprenticeships. Many feel that there is a mismatch between the higher education aerospace provision and the needs of the sector and, with few exceptions, further education provision is of poor quality. There are two other problems: the first is that young people are not aware of the existence of the career opportunity in aircraft maintenance; and, secondly, whilst there is funding to support 30 UK higher education aerospace design degrees, there is insufficient funding to support vocational aircraft maintenance education. There are two further developments that influence the situation. The first is the introduction of the JAR-66, the knowledge requirement for aircraft maintenance certifying staff. The JAR-66 allows holders of an approved degree to follow a fast track route to Category C licenced status. The second is the in introduction of two-year foundation degree. The purpose of the new foundation degree is to fuse the academic and vocational paths to high-level qualifications, help higher education supply the graduates needed to address the immediate shortage of skills and combat social exclusion by providing a route into higher education for groups that are currently under-represented. Current qualifications of aircraft maintenance engineers are not recognised for higher education entry. The result is that this particular group of society is under-privileged and compromised, in that they do not receive a national award for their degree level studies. T- his proposed JAR-66 compliant degree, jointly delivered by Kingston University and KLM UK Engineering, Norwich, will ensure that a stream of quality young people receive the best possible funded education and enter the aircraft maintenance engineering profession. It will raise the prestige of the sector ensuring that, like all other engineering disciplines, aircraft maintenance becomes degree-based profession.