The success of this year’s British Tunnelling Society Harding Prize Competition was an encouraging sign for the tunnelling industry as a whole, and in particular for up and coming engineers and the relatively depressed UK sector. However, the fact that six, albeit excellent entries, was deemed a success tells its own story about the industry.
Are, for example, all employers encouraging their young engineers to make such presentations of their expertise? Or are most only concerned about completing their contracts with the maximum profit and in the minimum time, not allowing for ‘extra mural’ activities?
All employers suffer from financial constraints and consequently it is left mainly to representative organisations to nurture the greater good of the industry, including encouraging young engineers. They don’t ask for a lot. Mainly it’s a chance to learn to modern standards, a chance to demonstrate what they can do, and chance of a decently paid job to make their efforts worthwhile. But are they getting these, and from where?
A letter from Dave Hindle in the last issue pointed the finger at some organisations he felt carried the blame, but these are not alone. The main efforts to make a significant difference in tunnelling education, the development of young engineers and the noticeable promotion of the industry as a whole have come often from volunteers (such as BTS members) and individual initiatives rather than the professional and representative organisations for which it is a duty. Such organisations must often appear to young engineers to be so divorced from their day-to-day reality as to be practically irrelevant. The same goes for governments.
Efforts at creating specialist tunnelling courses in the UK in the past have foundered through lack of funding and government interest. Now the major moves are, again, by individuals such as Charles Allen at CUC in Switzerland, who try to tap the funds of specialist commercial suppliers to develop specialist courses.
Perhaps I’ve got the big organisations wrong, but if I have they certainly don’t tell us unlike Charles Allen, the organisers of other specialist courses such as the BTS and in the US. By your silence you may stand accused. If there is good news about education and persuading young engineers not to leave the profession, then let us know.
If we do not make young engineers feel wanted, then the next time there is a tunnelling ‘feast’ after another unplanned ‘famine’, then there will be no-one left to serve without ‘spilling the gravy’.
