Dyson takes aims at Gove over ‘shameful’ decline in design and technology students
SIR JAMES DYSON has called for design and technology to be given equal status to maths and English as he criticised the Government over the “shameful” decline of teenagers studying the subject.
The billionaire inventor took ministers to task for making engineering inferior compared to other subjects as it emerged the number of GCSE entries has halved in five years.
There were 77,531 pupils studying the subject at GCSE level in England this year, down from 153,930 in 2017. Entries for girls have fallen by 62 per cent to 22,918, while the number of boys study- ing the subject has declined by 41 per cent to 54,613.
Sir James, 75, said: “The sharp decline in pupils studying design and technology, notably among girls in the last five years, is a shameful reflection of the Government’s approach and hardly the way to create a ‘science and tech superpower’. The downgrading of design and technology began under Michael Gove and should never have happened.
“Taught well, design and technology leads to high-value careers in engineering and technology.” Mr Gove has been accused of causing a decline in pupils studying technical and creative subjects because in 2011, the then education secretary introduced the English Baccalaureate to increase the take-up of traditional subjects that the Government said were “most valued by universities and employers”.
Secondary schools are measured on the number of pupils that take GCSES in
Ebacc subjects, which include maths, English language and literature, the sciences, history or geography.
Since its introduction, the number of pupils studying design and technology has fallen by almost 70 per cent.
Lord Baker, 87, who oversaw the creation of GCSES as Margaret Thatcher’s education secretary in the late 1980s, said: “The only way we’re going to be a successful country is if we have better training in skills.”
He said: “The decline in the number of young people taking design and technology at GCSE and A-level will have a far greater impact than on apprenticeship and T-level numbers.
“These courses provide students with the foundations for developing the skills we need for our country. The technical skills and knowledge of the different industries they can work in, of course. But it also helps instil important transferable skills such as creative thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving – skills which will not develop as far if the student is just learning English and maths, for [example].”
Sir James also lamented the quality of the GCSE engineering qualification at a time when the UK faces an estimated shortage of 60,000 engineers.
He said: “We are desperately short of engineers in the UK and unless the Government turns this trend around – for example by introducing a high-quality engineering GCSE and A-level – our chances of competing with the ambitious technology nations are vanishingly small.”
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “Design and technology [is] compulsory in primary and up to Year 9 in state-maintained schools, and is included in the headline measures for school accountability.”