The UK risks failing the next generation of engineers and technicians if proposed changes to the National Curriculum are implemented, the IET warns today.
In a statement echoed by industrial designer and businessman James Dyson, the Institution of Engineering and Technology argued that proposed changes to England’s design and technology (DT) curriculum lack the ambition needed to encourage more young people into engineering.
Dyson made a similar point in an article in today’s Guardian, arguing that education secretary Michael Gove was overlooking design and technology in the proposed curriculum and ‘diluting it with puff pastry and topiary’ instead of engineering.
Without an increase in engineers, he warned, technology companies would leave the UK for countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, further cutting Britain’s export capabilities.
As part of the IET’s submission to the Department for Education’s National Curriculum consultation, which closes today, the organisation said the draft proposals appear to set lower expectations for pupils compared to the existing programme.
In particular, the IET argues, there appears to be an inappropriately high focus on practical and life skills at the expense of encouraging students to innovate, design, create, and build.
Paul Davies, IET head of policy, said in a statement: ‘The draft Design & Technology curriculum has lacked expert input, and as a result, does not provide the rigour and challenge consistent with the needs of today.
‘We are concerned about the lack of emphasis of how Design & Technology relates to and is used in the creation of new technologies and modern manufacturing processes, which is very important to inspire students into strategically important related subjects such as engineering.
‘Without this link, students will not be adequately prepared for career opportunities and the needs of employers and, more worryingly, this will exacerbate the technical skills shortage that the UK is currently facing.
‘This is contradictory to the government’s attempts to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing industries.’
Dyson, whose charitable foundation today launched a new teaching resource called Ideas Box to enable children to experience the process of design engineering, said the curriculum should be about problem-solving, prototyping and learning by doing.
‘It is no coincidence that students who study DT alongside maths and science do better,’ he said in the article. ‘Taught well, it contextualises tricky equations and abstract scientific concepts in creative ways.’
How about encouraging girls in Engineering? We all know there is going to be a shortage of engineers in the furture, but there is nothing, or very little done to promote Girls and Women in STEM careers.
The Women Engineering Society (www.wes.org.uk) is working towards the awareness of students and women that Engineering is a very valid choice for a career.
Whatever you think of vacuum cleaners – and I mainly think of them as power sources for vacuum bazookas – James Dyson is spot on here. Doing practical stuff makes better professional engineers and scientists – because they grow up with a real feel for things. I regularly interview high powered students with very poor engineering judgement – because they have’nt taken stuff apart, repaired old cars or tried buiding their own inventions.
We need to give anyone doing physics & chemistry at school a soldering iron & a Meccano set – and access to a school science/engineering club if possible – maybe with a Dyson Ideas box too. Britain’s kids need sheds and Meccano, not puff pastry & topiary.
As one trained in system science way back in the 1950’s one of my best moves after graduating was to join a racing car group who built formula junior and sports racing cars. As an engineer, my jobs were to cut chrome moly steel for brackets and hold them in place while they were being welded. I also did the main structural design and aerodynamics, but they did not trust me until I could make a decent bracket.
Later on I had the best skills at paid work was supervising the development of small electro-mechanical devices for space use becasue all of my airey-fairy ides were quite well grounded in real issues of construction.
Trust Dyson to get it right, even if he does not understand the need for true HEPA filtration to protect occupants health.
Meccano – yes! Lego too to start with. You can’t dismantle modern toys in the same way you could with tin-plate & clockwork, and the inside of a plastic moulding will just be a nondescript pcb and a chip or two: nothing to learn from there by simple observation. That’s where Lego and Meccano etc. come into their own.
I’m happy to see how my two sons built on their Lego experience and entered engineering careers.
In the fifties the junior library was stuffed with non-fiction books that explained how factories made things, how trains ships and planes worked, etc, etc and I loved reading them and my father encouraged me to. Technical things were what most schoolboys thrived on (yes, in those days it was almost exclusively boys).
In the sixties my student apprenticeship taught me to file square plates to fit square holes and to diagnose faulty magnetic amps, diode logic and synchros and to design and tune electro-hydraulic servos for missiles.
My BSA Bantam taught me how to change the gearbox return spring in a small shed (b***** of a job – had to split the whole engine and very messy).
With a slip-stick and log tables as my only tools I become adept at university control engineering calcs with only very rare help from a computer and – very importantly – assimilated a gut-feel for when an answer was wrong.
Subsequently I worked in many sectors of industry.
However well-grounded a student may be in the theoretical aspects of a subject, however much CAD is available and however inherently creative they may be, without a wide and relevant range of direct experience there will be far fewer sparks of memory to trigger the connections that make the creative burst.
Today, society is different and there is insufficient interest in technical things or direct grass-roots experience. The UK engineering malaise is societal: focus on making parents and teachers really understand and be enthusiastic about engineering (not just IT) and, above all, eliminate puff pastry.
But if nobody learns Puff-pastry making then baking companies will leave the shores of Britain for Malaysia!
Very important to get more young people – males and females – into engineering!
Some great comments about a very interesting article.
Neil Downie hit the nail on the head, “because they have’nt taken stuff apart, repaired old cars or tried buiding their own inventions.”
We no longer repair anything – just swap out parts and guess what’s failed. To be able to design anything you have to have a good understanding of how things work, by taking things apart and repairing them you learn so much.
I have just fixed my fathers car as 2 garages (Including a main dealer) could not diagnose and effect a repair on a 1997 Volvo – their software did not cover that model now as it is too old. I used a multimeter and found the open circuit ABS sensor as the wire had failed.
How many people do you know can repair anything?
I am reliably informed that the latest cars being sold today have to have a computer plugged in to change the brake pads and the battery – why?
Modern technology is so complicated as a novice or young student how can you strip it apart and repair anything?
In our environmental time of need we are engineering products with a very short service life and with too few skills to be able to keep them working.
Barbie (and other high profile characters) taught girls that math is hard and boring.
We already have entire generations educated under premise of engineering being hard, dirty and not glamorous. These generations became educators of our youth. These generations came to political and decision making powers on national scale.
The country can easily import talented engineers from Poland, Hungary, etc. for a while, but for how long? Well trained, talented, speaking global language (English). Thank heavens for global policies of England over the past centuries, because most of these engineers would prefer to work in Germany but they do not master German language.
Ask an American or someone from Central Europe to name UK made or designed engineering products and you will get blank stares. Ask the same question about German, French, Swedish or Italian products and you will get multiple answers.
“The UK engineering malaise is societal (…)” [Steve | 16 Apr 2013 7:28 pm]. There is a lot of undoing to be done and the longer the wait the higher the cost to the society.
Engineering needs to be made real. I think having more Fab Labs in the country would make a big difference. Imagine the thrill of being able to design a ‘thing’ yourself and then watch a machine make it for just a few pounds.
True, today youngsters have little incentive or opportunity to meddle with things mechanical. The experience meddling brings is an essential foundation for innovation.
Schools have become adept at achieving academic results, and could usefully widen the curriculum to include ‘how-its-made’ subjects.
There MUST also be more focus on vocational skills , and incentives for schools offering out-of-hours hands-on projects. Problem is, teachers as produced by the usual route are mostly ill qualified for this, and ‘scrapheap challengers’ are mostly ill qualified to safely supervise kids.
Come on, Mr Gove, where’s the solution?
As usual, it seems that most can’t distinguish between mechanics and engineers.
Engineering is an academic activity, and education in academic subjects in schools is the way to re-generate the engineering profession, not playing with lego or meccano sets.
Has anyone else noticed how Mr Dyson never mentions the fact that engineers are poorly paid.
Many intelligent young people might be thinking about studying for an engineering degree. By the end of it they will have accumulated debts of around £50,000.
What would you then advise them to do?
1. Work in a very interesting engineering job for £22,000 a year and a promise of £28,000 a year in some unspecified time in the future (like ten years time). They might be able to buy their fist house when they are over 45.
2. Work in the city for a high salary that will ensure they will be able to pay off their student debt very quickly and then realistically think about becoming a first time buyer before they are 30.
Young people are not stupid !
Added to this many females find their way into accountancy, law and medicine without being guided into them – the professions that pay decent wages.
Young women are not stupid either !
The previous comments say it all. Getting a “feel” for what works and what doesn’t is a sound basis for the rigour of engineering design. Let’s start advertising ourselves more. James Dyson is an excellent mouthpiece for the cause. Keep it up! Be proud to be an Engineer!
“James Dyson is an excellent mouthpiece for the cause. Keep it up! Be proud to be an Engineer!”
And move your manufacturing out of this country. Is this what is needed?
Dyson speaks with the zeal of the convert. I understand he entered engineering by the mature candidate route, having already established his reputation as a product design artist who successfully evolved a cyclone by a process of repeatedly building phsical models.
Recruitment to art school Produt Design programs is bouyant. They are even told that Product Designers “can do everything an engineer can do”. But, this excess of supply is not filling engineering vacancies.
Our problem is getting students to take Maths and Physics at a level, and to follow through to (analytic) engineering degree programmes.
The “Product Design” course is a waste of time. My daughter has recently (3 years ago) completed one of these degrees at Sussex, and she has learned virtually nothing about engineering. When she entered. there were only 3 Universities offering this course. I made enquiries by visits to Sussex, Nottingham, and Liverpool. I was told that the courses were for students who found the more conventional engineering course too difficult. These proper engineering faculties are closing down, and this was to try to redress the issue.
The course is a beginner’s guide to “engineering”, being a mixture of graphic design and elementary engineering.
These courses were set up by a consultation between the Universities and schools.
Employers know little about them, so they are not really worth taking. Still, I expect that they are more valuable than Media Studies.
What I truely don’t understand is why all the practical experience of engineers is completely ignored by companies such as dyson over completely inexperienced degree students.
I’m Time Served with HNC qualifications with a good 15yrs experience yet the door is completely slammed in my face when I look at working in design and development for these companies. I’ve been a design engineer for a good 8yrs but yet I know nothing.
Maybe getting people with good working knowledge would enable companies to find the next good engineers, not just the graduates.
Interesting that the aspect of maths and its relevance is mentioned; much of this developed by physicists (& engineers) so they be creative (or solve problems). There is a synergy in linking all these subjects (in schools) – which should help in educating rather than training; experience is definitely important (rather than a SatNav approach to learning)
There is a lot going on here. DT subjects certainly have their value, particularly in a world where people tend to do less Engineering things themselves, such as servicing cars and so on- where many of my generation of engineers got our start. Unfortunately, they will prevent some of the more rounded education gained by doing other subjects as well. Particularly where those other subjects might have required a better command of the English language. Although as my son’s GCSE English teacher tells me that they no longer correct spelling on GCSE pieces (the reason: there would be too many corrections-seriously !), I may be more in hope than anticipation there.
However, we must also do something about the catastrophically low level to which science and mathematics education have sunk in schools, where, to be generous, one might consider A levels to be broadly equivalent to the old O levels we took at sixteen. The result of weak A levels is that more time is spent on remedial maths at university and understanding is hampered by weak science underpinnings. Four year degrees have thus become the norm, and a four year BEng does not begin to compare with an old style BSc.
Before I retire, I’ll be surprised if the entry level to the IMECHE is not a PhD, unless we get something done about the failure of our education system from five to eighteen years.
And yes, I am serious; between my two children, I so far have twenty three school years of spending my own time (and some of my five rather than thirteen weeks annual holiday) doing the teachers’ jobs for them, and paying for remedial maths tuition as well (so that they can learn the current methods; my “old” ways work, but are apparently not todays’ “right” [or with current teachers, perhaps “left”] ways).
So, yes, a focus on the DT subjects will be useful, but equally, and perhaps first, we must recover from the disastrous drop in standards in the core subjects.
Bet someone can spot a spelling or grammar error in the above.
Oops ! I meant a four year MEng does not begin to compare with a BSc. Silly me.
I’m currently 3 years into a 4 year Higher Apprenticeship for Engineering in the Motor Industry. (Hint: Crewe based, Luxury Vehicles) As a 21 year old I’ve got fresh first-hand experience of A-levels (Maths, Physics & Product Design) and how Engineering is promoted / taught in schools.
There’s no denying that Engineering isn’t well promoted by schools, and in particular this opinion that Apprenticeships are for ‘drop outs’, hammering the message of: Red Brick University = Success. I don’t think pay is the biggest a factor in youngster’s decision not to pursue a career in engineering.. It is the fact that they don’t know what engineering is!
When I say I work as an Engineer in the motor industry, people presume I’m some sort of mechanic – Which I’m far from! With this preconception in mind; Students getting straight A’s in their Maths & Science GSCE’s are very unlikely to aspire to be a car mechanic, so from leaving school Engineering isn’t even considered.
I can’t see how this is going to change… Especially with the ever-increasing use of the title Engineer for basically anyone who fixes or installs something.
“I can’t see how this is going to change… Especially with the ever-increasing use of the title Engineer for basically anyone who fixes or installs something”.
How true. I went to Grammar school in the North, taking maths, physics, and applied maths at “A” level. (then the HSC)
When I went applied to University I was told my education was not suitable for engineering courses. After much discussion, I was eventually accepted on a Mechanical Engineering course, being the only student from a Grammar School background. Up to that time, no other student from the same school had ever gone into engineering.
And this was in 1950.
The difference being that until about 1970, there was a commitment to educating engineers in the workplace. Companies provided excellent training, albeit at minimal salaries. There were ONC programmes, validated by the professionlal bodies IEE, IMechE, that were at least equivalent to the modern A level, and HNC required study of maths and physical science that would be beyond thr reach of many of todays undergraduates. HNC then exemplified the standard for corporate membership.
Professional, technician and craft routes were clearly defined. Now, we have degree courses that are accredited at CEng level, at IEng level, and many that fail to seek accreditation at all, avoiding all qualification barriers to the admission of students.
The engineering institutions, unlike law, and medicine, now appear to regard membership as a social asperation, rather than the product of coherent formation. The tendency is for the engineering institutions to become industry clubs, admitting to membership accountants, financiers, lawyers … So, why study engineering?
As an example, Houndsfield was material in the development of modern medicine – but I doubt he was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Surgeons. Similarly, I am wary of engineers who are admitted to the register, without having followed a full accredited programme.
The best way to make something sink in is to do it, not just read about it. It also brings experience of how things that look easy on paper may not be so straight forward in practice (ref earlier comment about the BSA). Perhaps the reason they want to remove the practical element is because the teachers have no practical experience.
Not only did Meccano Ltd produce their construction kits, but they also produced a very interesting monthly Meccano Magazine. Only a few of its pages were about Meccano products, but it also contained short articles on engineering topics. There was always a 2-page spread about railways (in the days when they were predominantly powered by steam locos), another one about aircraft (when they were all becoming jet or turbo-prop), and some months something similar about ships. Then there were articles about production processes, where I learnt, for instance, that “enrobing machines” coated ice-cream bars with chocolate, and many similar terms I’d never heard of before.
But do any firms like Lego produce any similar magazine on engineering topics these days, aimed at school children? I doubt it – someone correct me if I’m wrong.