By Nur Dianah Suhaimi

ENGINEERS are fast becoming an endangered species as more students opt for less 'boring' disciplines.

Rather than sit around to see their kind go the way of the dinosaurs, a group of engineers from the private sector has started a movement to encourage youth to take up engineering and to dispel the myth that it is boring.

The intrepid dozen have called their group Creators of Tomorrow.

Mr Ian Pang, a founding member, said the idea of forming the group came about when they realised they were having problems hiring new engineering talents.

The 30-year-old associate producer at Lucasfilm Animation said many students were going into medicine, banking and law, and even the few who did study engineering were ending up in banks or managerial positions.

The group's target audience: Students from secondary schools, junior colleges and polytechnics.

The founding members have yet to do the rounds of schools' open houses and campus road shows, but they have set up a website, ucreatechange.com, to reach the wired masses with their message and to field questions related to the field.

To better understand why students are not keen to take up engineering, the group conducted an online survey of more than 300 students. A large majority of those who were not keen to take up engineering said it was because they thought it was boring and monotonous.

The response from the website has been encouraging.

Another founding member, Mr Justin Chiam, 29, an aviation engineer at SIA Engineering, said questions flooded in from those fresh from their O- and A-level exams.

'There are those who fear engineering is a tough course, and also a handful of boys who say engineering courses have few girls for them to look at,' he said.

Member of Parliament for Ang Mo Kio GRC Lee Bee Wah, who is the president of the Institution of Engineers Singapore, confirmed that the engineering industry was grappling with image problems, and described the Creators of Tomorrow as a 'praiseworthy initiative'.

Engineering has indeed slipped from its heyday in the 70s and 80s, when it was the career of choice among students.

As recently as 10 years ago, three in 10 of the 16,000 polytechnic applicants picked engineering as their first-choice course; five years ago, only 15 per cent of 18,000 applicants did so.

The concern about the trend ran so deep that the five polytechnics here got together in 2004 to re-ignite interest in the field. Seminars and workshops were held to expose secondary school students to engineering as a career option.

But still, students are flocking to the 'softer' life sciences or the arts; even scholarships offered for engineering courses are not reeling in takers.

Mr Pang believes the problem lies in the schools' failure to offer 'context': 'When students toil through math and physics, they frequently ask 'Why am I doing this?' Without knowing how these lessons can be applied in real life, it gets boring.'

He suggests that before each class, teachers and lecturers make the lesson come alive by explaining how it is applied: 'Show them what they like. Fast cars, animation, explosions. Students need to know how cool engineering can be.'

The Economic Development Board (EDB) expects at least 6,000 engineering jobs to be created this year by the many high-profile projects here.

Ms Kimberly Quek, the deputy director of EDB's resource development division (human capital group), noted that many of these jobs will require science, engineering and technical skills.

Ms Lee said it is crucial that Singapore increase its pool of engineers.

She said: 'Without engineers, there would not be technological progress and advancements. Not only do we need to attract more students to study engineering, but we also need to attract the brightest ones. Otherwise, our society's progress will be done with.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.