NEW high-powered degrees to stop top engineers leaving Medway have been announced by the University of Greenwich's engineering school.

The masters courses are aimed at students completing their first degree and senior staff - many without degrees - already working in engineering and manufacturing firms. Tony Clayton, of the university, said at the launch in the Jellicoe Building, Chatham Maritime, that the degrees would help to keep good engineers in Medway and Kent.

He said: "Many of the students who graduate from here don't stay but go off elsewhere. What we're looking to do is create positive links with local commerce and industry so that it becomes a natural progression to graduate and take a job locally."

Professor Trevor Spedding, Medway chair of manufacturing systems, said many firms in Medway reached a level where they could no longer rely on their own expertise. he said: "You have to manage manufacturing properly and you have to have the e-technology. That is what we think these courses are offering."