Three hundred students from all over the province were in the AZ stadium in Alkmaar today to experience for themselves what technology entails. There is a serious shortage of technically trained personnel and to turn the tide, the business community is trying to get young people excited about a future in technology with a Career Day.
Learning how to program a robot to kick a football, view a KLM plane with VR glasses or repair a Waternet tap. The companies participating in the Career Day put their best foot forward to make young people enthusiastic about training in technology.
And while one student is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, the other student is enthusiastically engaged in one of the many workshops that are given on the second floor of the AZ stadium. “These students have already chosen a profile that includes mathematics, chemistry or biology,” says organizer Erik de Mink of Jet-Net. “We hope that after their exams they will also opt for a technical study.”
fruits
“Making formulas at school is of course fun, but through these workshops they see what you can do with it in practice,” continues Mink. Because in order to get students interested in a technical education, you have to make it tangible, according to him. “It definitely pays off in the end.”
The students also had to roll up their sleeves today. You can see how the students fared in the video below:
From figures from Technology Pact it appears that the number of students who prefer a technical education by choosing a nature profile in secondary school is falling. Between 2017 and 2021, that number dropped from 53,743 to 47,432, a 12 percent decrease
The technology sector is therefore crying out for highly trained (beta) technicians. “In North Holland alone, there are already 16 thousand vacancies for people with a technical background. We have all kinds of major problems in the Netherlands, such as the energy transition, an aging population and food shortages. We still have to look at how we can solve those problems with smart people. ”
Jet-Net & TechNet
Within the Jet-Net & TechNet platform, companies and schools have been working together – since 2002 – to teach students in context, so that they can make a conscious choice for a future in technology, engineering or ICT. Together they ensure that pupils in primary and secondary education can orientate themselves towards future professions with a realistic and positive image.