Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme

The Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme (UAS) is a program in the United Kingdom devised to encourage students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs to enter teaching by awarding them with degree course credits.^[1]

History

Noting the declining enrollment in STEM subjects at UK universities, a team including author Simon Singh devised the idea with three aims:

• to encourage undergraduates in those fields to go into teaching,
• to support teachers and
• to provide role models for school students who might otherwise never meet a young person who had chosen to study a STEM subject.

UAS was set up to provide a structure to get undergraduates into the classroom, based on a model pioneered at Imperial College London, but adding the incentive of academic credit for program participants.^[1]

After receiving approval to pilot UAS from the University of Surrey, Singh backed a launch of the program with his own money, with the assistance of Ravi Kapur and others.^[1] Student interest in the program was high.^[1] Singh indicated that in the pilot year of the program 10 of 13 math undergraduates who participate at the University of Southampton subsequently entered teacher training.^[2] By the midpoint of its second year,^[1] in February 2004, the program was being described by the Times Educational Supplement (TES) as a success, with nine universities onboard and an additional 30 expressing interest.^[2] In October 2005, Singh wrote in The Guardian that UAS was established in "over 50 university departments, mainly mathematics, science and engineering, with more coming on board each year."^[3] In the 2007–2008 academic year, involvement had risen to 107 university departments, with 750 undergraduate participants.^[4]

Function

According to TES, undergraduates involved first participate in a one-day program to give them basic information on instructing students in math and science.^[2] After this training, they observe a local classroom and then put together a project for the students in a class. The UAS website indicates that the program, available in the last two years of a student's undergraduate career, carries ten to 30 credits for ten weeks of work in the classroom alongside the classroom's regular teacher, who helps evaluate the undergraduate's performance.^[5]