Engineering had the highest dropout rate of any subject among its 1996-97 intake, with one in eight students leaving in their first year, according to the Engineering Council. Most students who left the course early had relatively low entry qualifications, leading to the council's director general to call for tougher entry requirements.
Statistics from the council also showed that there had been a 6 per cent rise in students studying engineering over the past ten years and that the United Kingdom is second only to Germany in Europe in the numbers of engineering graduates it produces.