For Britain, being better than our global competitors in the long term demands a generation of problem-solving, academically minded young people who are ready to use their hands and brains. But depending on the forthcoming curriculum review, Britain risks being a less inventive place. To our economic detriment, design and technology is under threat.
D&T is the most popular optional subject. It mustn’t be sidelined, but it does need a revamp. It’s too broad (learning to cook is important but it won’t grow the economy) and it has an image problem (currently viewed as “woodwork”, a subject for, dare I say it, the less academically able). If the subject isn’t made useful, neither headteachers nor children will opt for it, propelling it into extinction.
It should be called “design, technology and engineering”. Modern D&T should sit alongside science and mathematics — merging the practical with the academic; grounding abstract theory. It has the rigour of engineering, so it should attract the brightest minds. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, sees the English baccalaureate as the new measure of educational success. And already some schools have ditched D&T, discouraging pupils to study anything other than the “golden five” of maths, science, humanities, English and a foreign language. But when will they learn about engineering?
We need to develop, rather than quash, the instinct that young people have to rip things apart to discover how they work. Inventors are not mad eccentrics in lab coats; anyone with creativity, application and persistence can invent. We try to encourage this through the James Dyson Foundation by going into schools and exposing young people to how things are made.
Today the 2011 James Dyson Award opens for entries, and inventions from 18 countries are expected. The winners in 2009 were Yusuf Muhammad and Paul Thomas, who invented a fire extinguisher that can be fitted on to a standard kitchen top to detect a fire. Automist is now on the market.
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The Budget was one “for making things”. An excellent start. But we need the “things for making”. Which in turn, requires inventive ideas and inventive people. DT&E’s importance must be upheld by everyone involved if we are to rebalance the economy through technology and exports.
Sir James Dyson is the founder of Dyson, the technology company