Science and TechnologyWritten evidence submitted by The Open University

Summary

1. The Open University (OU) welcomes the House of Commons Science and Technology’s inquiry into engineering skills

2. The OU is a major provider of part-time higher education in engineering—about 40% of UK part time undergraduate students in Engineering & Technology are OU students. The University’s tradition of flexible provision has enabled its students to integrate their study and career development.

3. The OU works closely with employers to provide flexible routes to initial qualification and options for career progression in engineering.

4. With changing patterns of 14–19 qualifications and changing student behaviour, the OU has the capability to work with other institutions to provide flexible pathways into the engineering professions for students with a variety of previous educational and employment experience.

5. The Government could do more to raise the status of technical subjects. They have not been given the prominence they warrant given the need to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing industries and to overcome the enormous challenges associated with development of the infrastructure needed to address sustainability and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

6. Our traditional focus on work based part-time learners has given us much experience in transforming careers by providing opportunities for progression to higher level qualifications. We feel that working closely with employers to upgrade the existing workforce should be a priority that provides rapid payback to both employer and individual through immediate workplace application of learning. Our qualifications structures are aligned to the Engineering Council requirements hence it is possible to construct a career development path, with multiple entry points, from Foundation Degree to Chartered Engineer and beyond to Masters qualification through part-time OU study.

7. We can work in collaboration with employers to enable them to grow their own engineering professionals. Building the professional learning culture that enables individuals to respond to change with confidence is the most important contribution to achieving sustainable engineering growth.

8. We are happy to provide the Committee with further evidence of how the OU has evolved around the changes in qualification and education structures to deliver engineering skills to learners from across the UK.

Does the current engineering skills base meet the needs of employers? Do employers in the engineering sector prefer an academic or a vocational profile?

9. To address the needs of employers, the professional qualifications structure in engineering recognises that at all levels engineers are required to demonstrate a combination of vocational and academic skills. The emphasis differs with level in the progression from Engineering Technician to Incorporated Engineer to Chartered Engineer but at all levels engineers are expected to integrate academic knowledge and vocational skills.

10. The OU is a major provider of part-time higher education in engineering—about 40% of UK part time undergraduate students in Engineering & Technology are OU students.1 The University’s tradition of flexible provision has enabled its students to integrate their study and career development. Historically, many OU students have used OU study to achieve a transition from ONC and HNC vocationally related qualifications to higher education qualifications. In effect, their study pattern sequence was the reverse of that of conventional students who first acquired academic knowledge and then enriched this with practical knowledge in employment in preparation for their submission for Chartered status.

11. We have evolved OU engineering programmes that are accredited by the major professional bodies as fulfilling their educational requirements at both Incorporated and Chartered Engineer levels and that enable students to integrate their workplace skills with their academic study.2 Since securing these important accreditations our engineering programme has seen the most rapid growth of all our STEM programmes showing more than 10% year-on-year growth since 2008–09.

12. In addition to BEng (Hons) and MEng qualifications, we have recently introduced two engineering foundation degrees (FDs), one in collaboration with The Welding Institute (TWI), that enable students to gain credit for work based activities incorporating TWI qualifications.

13. Our conversations with employers and Sector Skills Councils lead us to believe that employers recognise the need for diversity in the routes through which their engineers secure qualifications and that flexibility in career development and progression is vitally important. The national student destinations survey shows that 97% of those graduating with an OU BEng are in employment six months after graduation (27% of those combining work and further study) with salaries significantly above both OU and national graduate means.3

14. Our teaching activities in Europe indicate that the UK’s flexible approach to engineering qualifications is also valued by German employers.

15. Open University Validation Services validates honours level Engineering programmes at Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (DHBW). The provision is truly jointly funded and supported by employers, offering theoretical study in college interspersed with blocks of practical training in industry. Students are selected and also employed throughout their programme by one of several thousand companies or partner employers participating in the scheme.

16. In our distance teaching activity a major German telecommunications company sponsors its technicians wishing to progress to Bachelors degrees. These students are granted credit exemption for a suite of the company’s internal programmes.

17. In the post-Browne environment we plan to work more closely with employers to provide flexible routes to initial qualification and options for career progression. Wherever possible these routes will provide the opportunity for recognition of work-based professional learning.

What impact will recent changes relating to engineering qualifications in England have on the uptake of technical subjects and the skills base needed by the engineering sector?

18. As the OU has not specifically set out to attract the 18 year-old school leaver population we are not in a position to comment directly on the impact these changes will have on recruitment to our programmes. We acknowledge the conflicting pressures between the perceived need to improve performance in the traditional underpinning subjects of mathematics and science and the need to develop the problem solving skills that high value modern engineering demands of practitioners at all levels.

19. The Engineering Council UK SPEC standards incorporated within the QAA’s benchmark statement for engineering4 emphasise that a creative approach to engineering challenges requires an awareness of socio economic factors, a suite of professional skills and ethical behaviours in addition to technical knowledge. This view of the profession is shared by the European Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (EUR-ACE) and the US Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The UNESCO report5 on the global status of engineering identifies a widespread need for engineering curriculum reform to emphasise the problem solving and team working aspects of the profession.

20. The practice of engineering has also been transformed by the universality of ICT applications both through the software tools employed and the global nature of engineering companies and service providers.

21. It would run counter to international trends if changes in the 14–19 curriculum and qualification suite caused a reversion of the progress that the profession has made in projecting its role in providing solutions to societal needs and underpinning economic development. It is important that potential students are aware of the breadth of skills required of engineers and that the problem solving aspects of the profession are not overshadowed by over emphasis on the engineering science and mathematical requirements. We are particularly concerned that the English Baccalaureate downgrades exposure to technologies in general and ICT specifically.

22. The OU has particular interests in widening access to higher education by working with employers and other institutions. The collaboration with TWI to offer a FD in Materials Fabrication and Engineering is one example. In addition, through the work of Open University Validation Services, FE colleges provide OU qualifications in engineering—a notable example being Havering College’s partnership with Ford Motor Company. The programmes are BEng (Hons) Engineering, FD in Engineering and FD in Motorsport Engineering. The College has over 30 years’ experience of delivering HE programmes and utilises a curriculum map that indicates each curriculum area and the progression routes from FE through to HNC/D, FD or Bachelor degree. The undergraduate and FD provision is part of a combined engineering provision including HNCs via part-time study delivered at a purpose built campus resourced by Ford to cohorts of students from the company.

23. At graduate level OU collaboration with National Skills Academy Nuclear has resulted in an industry recognised Certificate of Nuclear Professionalism that focuses on the additional high level professional skills and behaviours engineers need to operate in its highly regulated, high integrity environment. The Nuclear Institute describes these skills as the Nuclear Delta and it is anticipated that the Certificate will be acknowledged as evidence of fulfilment of this requirement for Nuclear Institute membership.

24. We maintain our commitment to open access entry routes to the university and are making significant investment in the redevelopment of our suite of “Openings” modules for the STEM subjects. These modules will provide the study skills and subject knowledge to enable students lacking the normal university entrance requirements to prepare for entry to our formal degree programmes.

25. Our Science Faculty works in partnership with 15 universities—many of whom are Russell Group universities—to offer students a 2+2 study pattern in which two years of part-time study with the OU is followed by two years of campus-based study. This scheme is called OpenPlus.6 Development is underway for extension of this programme into the engineering domain, broadening the routes available for entry to engineering programmes.

26. The changes brought about by digital technologies mean that much of engineering practice is concerned with the interface between the physical and digital worlds. Provision of practical experience has always provided a challenge for the OU that has been successfully met by mechanisms such as our Residential Schools. Increasingly, our suite of online facilities is addressing these requirements. Students now have access to full online library facilities and the university is active in the development of Virtual Laboratory environments enabling access to experimental simulations and remote laboratories. Funding from the Wolfson Foundation is enabling the development of a demonstrator OpenScience Laboratory that we aspire to extend to cover engineering science. Our academic staff are contributing to national and international debate on the role of online practical activity in engineering education.

27. One particular example of innovation in practical activity has been the introduction of a single board computer, the Senseboard, enabling students on an entry level module My Digital Life TU100, with 5,000 students, to learn programming at the all-important digital-physical interface. The specially developed Open Source programming language Sense, provides a flexible visual programming environment in which students can develop applications that respond to sensors and control output devices. The rationale for the module is consistent with recent broadly publicised analyses suggesting the reinstatement of formal programming within the 14–19 curriculum. Our hardware and software provides a platform that can be further exploited in more advanced courses within our own or other HE institutions or could migrate downwards into the schools and FE sector.

28. With changing patterns of 14–19 qualifications and changing student behaviour, the OU has the capability to work with other institutions to provide flexible pathways into the engineering professions for students with a variety of previous educational and employment experience.

How do the approaches taken by the Devolved Administrations to produce a technically skilled workforce differ to the current approach in England? What are the strengths/weakness of the different approaches?

29. The OU operates across the four nations of the United Kingdom with student funding arrangements varying between the administrations. Our Nation Directors have close relationships with their respective Higher Education departments and are able to respond to national initiatives, whether targeted at particular industry sectors or subject areas. In Scotland, for example we are actively engaged in projects relating to the renewables and the offshore oil and gas industries.

Could the Government and others do more to raise the status of technical subjects?

30. The Government could do more to raise the status of technical subjects. They have not been given the prominence they warrant given the need to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing industries and to overcome the enormous challenges associated with development of the infrastructure needed to address sustainability and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

31. Government departmental websites provide information on policy but do not provide an analysis of the challenge of supplying enough engineers and technicians to meet imminent demands.

32. Clearly in an environment in which students are encouraged to invest in their education creation of a positive image of technical subjects and the professions to which they lead is of vital importance.

33. The OU contributes in this area through its partnerships with the BBC and other broadcasters to develop programmes of interest to a broad sector of the population. In the areas relevant to the committee we would point to our ongoing role in the BBC’s Bang Goes the Theory series that aims to convey the excitement of engineering and science. Through six series since 2009 a wide range of topics have been covered. Viewers (average audience 2.6 million) are able to visit the series website7 to access additional information, and suggested kitchen table experiments.

34. The annual OU’s Bang roadshow is a face-to-face outreach activity visiting cities around the UK with the objective of raising interest in STEM subjects, with a typical attendance of 100,000 per year. The How to Build a …… series8 on BBC 2 (average audience 1.4 million per programme) has demonstrated the complexity of the work undertaken by major British Engineering companies like Rolls-Royce, QinetiQ, BAE Systems, Airbus, McLaren and Astrium. Derivative programmes specifically for schools and clips for teachers to use in classroom settings provide high quality insights into the work of engineers at all levels.

35. In line with the OU’s policy of making its resources widely available to support individuals who wish to undertake independent learning, many of these resources are available through OpenLearn9, iTunes U10 and other portals through which we reach millions of users.

What more should be done to attract and retain a more diverse technically skilled workforce?

36. From an OU perspective our traditional focus on work based part-time learners has given us much experience in transforming careers by providing opportunities for progression to higher level qualifications. Hence we feel that working closely with employers to upgrade the existing workforce should be a priority that provides rapid payback to both employer and individual through immediate workplace application of learning. Our qualifications structures are aligned to the Engineering Council requirements hence it is possible to construct a career development path, with multiple entry points, from Foundation Degree to Chartered Engineer and beyond to Masters qualification through part-time OU study.

37. Potentially we can work in collaboration with employers to enable them to grow their own engineering professionals. Building the professional learning culture that enables individuals to respond to change with confidence is the most important contribution to achieving sustainable engineering growth.

June 2012