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CHANGING tyres, painting walls and fixing cables are not activities commonly associated with the working woman.

But colleges in Wales have reported a steady upsurge in the number of female students signing up to become mechanics, decorators and engineers.

Applications have risen by as much as 20% in some cases, with women ditching stereotypically female professions in favour of those normally dominated by men.

Deeside College has seen a 17% increase in female full-time engineering enrolments for 2011-12.

Neath Port Talbot College said courses involving construction, plumbing and plastering were particularly popular with women, while interest in classic car restoration has blossomed at Cardiff’s Coleg Glan Hafren.

Bradley Tanner, head of automotive engineering and construction at Glan Hafren, said: “For the 2011-12 intake, we have had 36 applications from females wanting to study courses such as fabrication and welding, which is a far cry from a decade ago when there were very few females in the faculty.

“In the faculty 2011 awards, the students of the year for both engineering and construction technologies were both female.”

Ian Lumsdaine, deputy director for skills at Neath Port Talbot, said: “Many of the courses in construction have a significant number of female students such as painting and decorating, where it’s not uncommon to have classes with a 50-50 split between males and females.

“Female students regularly excel within other areas of construction and have received recognition for outstanding achievement in construction, civil engineering, plastering, painting and decorating.”

The painting and decorating cohort at Coleg Morgannwg in Rhondda Cynon Taf is a quarter female, a proportion that has been growing for the past five years.

Cerys Williams, who recently completed a course in manufacturing and engineering at the college, is now pursuing an apprenticeship in Clydach Vale.

“I think that women can bring different things to engineering because they can look at things from an alternative perspective,” she said.

“Being the first ever woman to work within engineering at my company has been challenging, particularly given my initial nerves at working in a male-dominated industry.

“Despite my apprehension, I feel I have proven to myself and to work colleagues that I have the abilities necessary to be a competent engineer. The main thing for women to remember when going into a trade is that they have the same right to do the work as any man and there is support out there for those who want to learn.”

Kevin Dickens, a tutor at Coleg Morgannwg, said vocational courses provide the perfect springboard into business.

“They equip our students with the skills they need to seek employment with confidence, or even to set up in business on their own,” he said. “Modern industries recognise that women do as good a job as men in any arena they set their mind to, despite the outdated stereotypes of the past.”

But the growing interest in vocational courses is not unique to women, with learning a trade seemingly more appealing after the recession. The attraction of starting a career without the burden of costly university fees is a particular draw.

Deeside College, which operates in Flintshire, Denbighshire and Wrexham, has seen a 40% rise in the number of men enrolling onto its health and social care courses.

There are 11 male students set to start their hair and beauty studies in September, while last year there was only one.

College principal David Jones said: “We have seen huge increases in some areas this year from non-traditional genders. Hopefully this demonstrates that attitudes are slowly changing and our learners are focusing on the employment prospects in the local area when choosing their courses.”