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Science minister David Willetts on the importance of STEM subjects

A lot has to be done to turn around long term attitudes and the failures of many years. In teaching a Junior Engineering club at a primary school, it became obvious to me that most of the children came from homes where nothing practical was done at all, and they truly loved the tasks we worked through. We must engender more practical skills. Even cooking at home; in a society where the upwards spiralling of a bloated public sector has led to a near compulsion for two incomes to pay rising taxes, frequently by means of another made up job in said public sector, parents have little if any time at home to cook or do any of the practical things my parents did, and it shows. But we must also overcome the collapse in educational standards that makes A levels about as in depth as O levels used to be, and sees MEng degrees as clearly failing to get Graduates up to the standard we used to be able to expect from a BSc. Unless we admit the failures, we cannot correct for the future.

16 Apr 2012

8:33 am