Engineering New Zealand says Massey University's proposed cuts to its engineering offerings is a symptom of "underinvestment and lack of promotion" of the technical skills taught in schools.
The university is proposing to cut its engineering and plant science courses, with more than 100 jobs reported to go.
According to Stuff, the new proposal was revealed to cut staff numbers by more than 60 percent by merging schools of Natural Sciences and Food and Advanced Technoloy and ending provision of those courses at its Auckland campus.
It's reported the proposal included plans to cease Engineering, Plant Science and other offerings, and close the Massey Genome Service and Manawatū Microscopy and Imaging Centre.
Engineering New Zealand chief executive Richard Templer told AM the four-year engineering degree program is facing the chop and believes it's a "symptom of a bigger problem".
"There has been underinvestment and a lack of promotion of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in our schools. And this is leading to a real shortage in scientists, engineers and people with technical skills."
Templer said over the last 10 years there has been an up to 25 percent reduction in students being assessed in chemistry, physics and advanced mathematics – subjects needed to get into engineering programmes.
"We're not seeing the student numbers coming through."
Templer told AM "we need the next Government's support" to invest and focus on the key technical subjects taught in schools.
"Because without investment at schools, without young people coming through, we're not going to have the engineers we need."
He told AM young people need to be targeted and made excited about the technical subjects. Templer added a programme run by Engineering NZ does exactly that.
"[It] is all about getting kids excitied about physics and technology, and this year we had that in over 800 classrooms years seven and eight, which is close to 50 percent.
Watch the full video above for more.
