Petrex – an Aberdeen based subsea engineering and project management consultancy – has taken its ‘education meets enterprise’ initiative into the city’s Skene Square School as a gentle introduction to industry for North-East pupils.
The Petrex Education Meets Enterprise Team was given a warm welcome by pupils and teachers alike discussing recent achievements and events at the school following on from Skene Square School celebrating its 150th birthday, followed by a day of informative presentations and interactive group sessions to senior school pupils sharing a general awareness of the Oil and Gas (OAG) and renewables sectors.
Ian Pithie, Petrex Business Manager, explained: “Kevin Kit Ho, an award winning Subsea Designer, gave an interesting overview of a Subsea Field Development Project with the use of his ‘show-stopping’ 3D animations. An enthralled audience of 12-year olds suddenly realised how cool it would be to have a career as a Subsea Designer.
“And Derek Younie gave several workshop sessions on his Project Management Work and his interesting stories from his working world travels, followed by an extremely popular feature on Personal Protection Equipment.”
Ian – who then discussed the ethics of good business and how all the topics of discussion could help the pupils in their future career development – commented, “The attentive Skene Square children were a credit to their school, showing great interest in their local economy and future challenges within the North Sea.”
Eileen Jessamine, Head Teacher at Skene Square, made sure that the days content also supported the schools current Curriculum for Excellence.
Finally, a Design Challenge was put to the Skene Square seniors as they were asked to design how they would see the Subsea Field Development in the year 2050. This will form part of their term work, and once completed the schools panel of judges will sit with the Petrex team to find the ultimate winner and award very apt industry related prizes.
Pithie added: “Recently we heard Youth Employment Minister Angela Constance stressing that the Government wants deeper and more comprehensive engagement between the world of education and the world of work.
“We also constantly hear of the North Easts’ on going skills shortage in the oil and gas (OAG) arena, due to a lack of understanding and poor early intervention with information available to schools – so Petrex, a forward-thinking company – decided to start our own local education project.
Established in 2008 Petrex, is a privately owned subsea engineering and project management consultancy working in the international OAG and renewables industries.
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