A) Answer the questions that follow. 1. What do interior finishes define?

Five years ago this journal reported that the civil engineering profession was relatively invisible to young people that universities were struggling to fill places and that many practitioners were dissatisfied. Since then there has been a welcome improvement. The same authors now find that civil engineering is featured regularly on television, applications to universities are up and practising civil engineers seem happier. This coincides with civil engineers enjoying a relatively high workload and being offered improved salaries and more flexible, family friendly working patterns. Unchanged, however, is the very low proportion of women entering the profession.

In May 2003 the authors published a paper in "Civil Engineering" describing the "invisibility" of the civil engineering profession, its relatively poor image in schools and how this might be improved. This paper reviews the changes that have taken place during the last five years. In 2003 a number of factors were adversely affecting civil engineering's image. These are summarised briefly below.

—Applications to study civil engineering at university had fallen by around 50% between 1995 and 2001, resulting in the closure of some courses.

—In 2000, 61% of accepted home applicants to engineering and technology degree courses held A/AS-levels and 15% of a Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) national

diploma or general national vocational qualification (GNVQ). Usually A-level entrants to civil engineering must have mathematics but, in 2001, a 29% failure rate in the "new" AS-level maths (introduced as part of the 2000 curriculum reforms) significantly reduced the number of candidates for the full A-level. Compared to its BTEC national diploma predecessor, the advanced general national vocational qualification (AGNVQ) contained insufficient mathematics.

— Many young people associated engineering with car mechanics
and dirty, manual, low-status work. Civil engineering and
construction were also perceived by many as a dirty, manual job
that could potentially be "boring".

—Surveys indicated that around 70% of sixth-form students claimed to "know nothing" about civil engineering and construction, and 62% would not consider it as a career.

—The image of a male-dominated construction industry was unattractive to many girls and some boys.

—The starting salary of graduate civil engineers was relatively low, which discouraged people from joining the profession.

— 82% of practising civil engineers thought that they were
undervalued by their employer and 64% had considered leaving the
industry in the last year.

The authors made a number of suggestions for improving the image of civil engineering. These included increasing the starting salaries of graduates, engaging in a public relations campaign involv­ing positive news releases and television programmes, and a sustained commitment to positively promoting the profession in schools through the use of exciting hands-on activities and work experience. When considering the changes of the last five years, it is useful to consider how they fit into a longer time frame. The business writer, Charles Handy, claimed that many things are cyclical and can be represented by the sigmoid curve — like a sine curve or horizontal S. The curve represents relative success with time, and may be used to chart anything from the rise and fall of empires to a product's life cycle. Both civil engineering's workload and universities' recruitment are cyclical.

278 Английский язык для студентов строительных специален эстей

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Universities' recruitment increases.

One good numerical indicator of the "health" of civil engineering is how many school students wish to enter the profession. The number of home civil engineering applicants to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) reached the bottom of the current section of the sigmoid curve in 2002, and then experienced a modest increase. This benefits both the construction industry, which has been struggling to recruit enough graduate civil engineers, and universities' civil engineering departments, which need sufficient students to remain economically viable.

The University of Plymouth, where both authors work, runs separate degree courses that lead to chartered and incorporated engineer status. Despite more UK students now going to university than ever before, the number of home students admitted to the chartered course in the 2000s is lower than in the 1980s. In between there have been highs (96 students) and lows (25). Many factors influence these numbers, including the image and popularity of civil engineering compared to its competitor professions.

In 1997 anything associated with computers and electronic engineering was seen as positive and futuristic. The high point of computing's sigmoid curve was 2001, when there were 24 054 home applicants to UCAS for computer science; in 2006 there were 10 684, a fall of 56%. Applications for electronic and electrical engineering have also fallen sharply in the last few years. Their loss may have contributed to civil engineering's recovery.

Another interesting long-term fluctuation is the percentage of students admitted to the course at Plymouth with A-Ievels. At around 60% it is effectively the same in the mid-2000s as in the early 1980s. Again, there have been highs (82%) and lows (25%). Almost all of these students have a pass in A-level maths, a subject which itself has experienced fluctuating popularity. Following the 2000 curriculum reforms, there was a 29% failure in AS-level maths in 2001, which resulted in a 19% reduction in candidates for A-levcl maths and further maths in 2002.

The resulting alarm triggered adjustments to the maths A-level, which from 2003 onwards has been monitored independently of further maths. Since 2003, the proportion of candidates achieving the highest grade, A, has increased steadily to 44% in 2007, with

a further 21% obtaining grade B. This is relatively high compared to many other subjects. There has been some debate as to whether or not this represents a real improvement in standard. Some suggest that schools are being very selective about who they allow to take A-level maths, others that grade inflation has occurred.

It is beneficial to civil engineering that the possibility of achieving high grades now appears to be encouraging students to take A-level-maths and further maths. Indeed, 2007 saw the highest number of candidates since 2000. Vocational qualifications have also experienced some difficulties. In the mid-1980s the BTEC national diploma was revised; initially it contained insufficient maths, but this was rectified so that in 1993 it provided the majority of entrants to Plymouth's course. The BTEC national diploma was superseded by the mathematically weak AGNVQ and these students started arriving at Plymouth in 1995. The ill-conceived AGNVQ was soon replaced and, by 2002, Plymouth received students with the new BTEC national diploma. This can contain two maths units, but frequently only one is taken (out of a total of 18) so mathematics may represent only around 6% of the course. This is much less than the maximum of 33% obtained from three A-levels. Thus new national diploma students are often relatively weakin mathematical skills. In the 2000s, BTEC national diploma students represent a minority of Plymouth's entry.

Civil engineering education suffers from two continuing problems: Britain's aversion to maths and the lower academic status afforded to construction. In 2007, plans are well advanced in schools for the new "work-related" 14-19 diplomas. These are the equivalent of two to three A-levels in length of study and will provide another route into higher education. Available from September 2008, subjects include engineering and construction and the built environment. The UK Engineering Professors' Council complained that the new engineering diploma contained only around one-sixth of A-level maths, which is insufficient. At the eleventh year, some additional mathematics has been added. The construction diploma contains much less mathematics, and it is doubtful that, by itself, it will enable students to be successful on university chartered-level engineering degree courses.