Green energy ‘should be promoted as career’

SCOTLAND will not have the skilled workforce it needs to meet renewable energy targets for 2020 unless it is promoted as a worthwhile career, education experts have warned.

MSPs on Holyrood’s energy committee were told attempts to attract workers to the industry were being hampered by mixed messages in the media, a lack of promotion of the career path in schools, cuts to college funding and courses that did not equip people with the skills they needed.

The Scottish Government aims to generate the equivalent of 100 per cent of electricity demand from renewable sources by 2020 by developing offshore wind and tidal energy.

Giving evidence to the committee as part of its inquiry into the target, Linda Greig, director of business and sponsorship at Carnegie College, said colleges did not have enough awareness of the kind of jobs available in the renewables industry, which was not being seen as an “attractive” career path.

“Trying to get the throughput from schools is tremendously difficult,” she said. “We are not seeing enough women coming into engineering. It is still seen as a ‘dirty trade’.

“We’ve got a real job to try and influence parents.”

Turning to the courses on offer, Ms Greig referred to recent comments by Dr Peter Hughes, chief executive of Scottish Engineering, who described some of them as “Mickey Mouse”.

She said: “He is absolutely right. In order to deliver the kind of quality programmes we are talking about, that allow young people to be in an industrial environment, see employers coming in, you need the venue, you need the resource, the kit, the staff.

“It is very, very expensive. I think there are only a few centres that can deliver that kind of programme.”