Science and TechnologyWritten evidence submitted by The Royal Academy of Engineering (with the National Committee for 14–19 Engineering Education)

About us

1.Founded in 1976, The Royal Academy of Engineering (the Academy) promotes the engineering and technological welfare of the country. Our fellowship—comprising the UK’s most eminent engineers—provides the leadership and expertise for our activities, which focus on the relationships between engineering, technology, and the quality of life. As a national academy, we provide independent and impartial advice to Government; work to secure the next generation of engineers; and provide a voice for Britain’s engineering community.1

2. This submission has been prepared with input from the National Committee for 14–19 Engineering Education (the Committee). The Committee is convened by The Royal Academy of Engineering and has members drawn from more than 50 engineering organisations. These include engineering employers, universities, FE Colleges and training providers, schools, sector skills councils, professional engineering institutions, learned mathematical societies and organisations that promote STEM subjects in schools. The Committee has its origins in the Engineering Diploma Development Partnership. The 14–19 Diploma in Engineering (now the Principal Learning qualification in Engineering) has strong support from engineering employers, universities, FE Colleges and schools so when the government support for the Diploma Development Partnerships was withdrawn the Committee was convened by the Academy in response to repeated requests from the engineering profession. The Committee is not funded by Government. It operates entirely on voluntary effort and engineering employers have chosen to invest time and effort in it. It is fully independent of any single organisation.

3. The active programme of work in the Committee for nearly two years since its creation is evidence that the engineering profession cares about 14–19 engineering education and is willing to invest time and effort in getting it right. 14–19 engineering education is seen by the engineering profession as an important foundation before progression to engineering Apprenticeship, engineering study and training in the FE & Skills sector and engineering higher education. Together, these provide the engineering skills base for the UK.

Detailed submission

4. The current engineering skills base is complex as engineering skills are deployed in all sectors of the economy; including but not limited to those readily associated with engineering such as manufacturing, energy and utilities, construction, transportation, IT and communications.2 Based on a very detailed inspection of the 2011 Labour Force Survey data undertaken by the Academy, there are 730,000 self-declaring “engineers”; 700,000 Level 3+ self-declaring science, engineering, technology (SET) Technicians/Associate Professionals’, 880,000 skilled engineering trades-people. This makes 2.3 million skilled people in the engineering-related skills base—8% of the UK workforce. The engineering workforce is highly productive—producing one fifth of the national GDP and half of UK exports.3

5. The engineering skills base is differentiated; it includes engineering post-graduates, graduates, higher intermediate (eg HNC/HND qualified) and professional engineering technicians4 (associate professionals and skilled trades).5 However, the job roles are not necessarily delimited by qualification—so, for example, in some skilled trades the graduate share of jobs is now as high as 15%—and 27% in some associate professional roles.6 This may or not reflect requirement of the jobs and may, indeed, be building up further problems for the future as full-time engineering undergraduates are not trained to be productive in these practical and employer-specific commercial roles.7

6. A 15% average wage premium (compared to the labour market as a whole) is paid to people who work in engineering occupations.8 This is not limited to graduate engineering occupations and additional premia are found for people holding STEM qualifications (generally at Level 3 and 4+) in those occupations. Association with higher wages is evidence that engineering skills are valuable and therefore meet the needs of employers.

7. The existence of a wage premium suggests that the demand for engineering skills exceeds supply. The engineering workforce is aging9 and the median age of registered engineers and engineering technicians is rising each year. In addition there are stark shortages of higher skilled (QCF level 3 and 4) technicians with 450,000 required (mostly in engineering) by 202010 and well documented shortages of skilled people a variety of engineering sectors such as computing,11 power electronics12 and railway engineering.13

8. Royal Academy of Engineering calculations, using a combination of UKCES predictions for 2010–2014 and LFS occupational population data for 2009 suggest 820,000 SET professionals will be required by 2020 (80% of these required in engineering). This is based on a 7:1 ratio of replacement demand to expansion demand (reflecting the age profile of engineers in the labour market).

9. Engineering employers value both academic and more vocational routes as exemplified by the engineering professions accreditation of engineering degrees as well as the approval of selected vocational and occupational awards which can contribute towards achieving Technician registration.15 Additional evidence is found in the active involvement of engineering organisations in 14–19 engineering education in general and its support for the 14–19 Diploma in Engineering (now the Principal Learning qualification in engineering) in particular. This has received much media attention in recent months with the strong endorsement from employers, professional engineering institutions, universities and the Royal Academy of Engineering16 being well known in government. A list of vocational awards in STEM subjects, deemed to be respected by the engineering profession and the STEM community more widely has been published jointly by the Baker-Dearing Educational Trust, the Edge Foundation and the Royal Academy of Engineering.17

10. There have been many changes to the schools and college landscape in England in recent months and years that affect the engineering skills base. However, we shall restrict our attention here to: the implementation of the English Baccalaureate; changes to the recognition of 14–16 vocational qualifications in school performance tables; changes to the National Curriculum; greater focus on apprenticeships; introduction of University Technical Colleges.

11. As stated in the Committee’s submission to the Education Select Committee inquiry into the English Baccalaureate—The English Baccalaureate does nothing to promote practical and technical experience outside of mathematics and science and as a result does not do enough to support productive industry in the UK, particularly technician routes.

12. The changes to the recognition of 14–16 vocational qualifications implemented recently by the Department of Education do nothing to develop a positive identity for the best vocational qualifications as valuable components in a general and practical education for 14–16 year olds. Whilst the Committee welcomes the fact that the changes now identify a short list of qualifications that meet published criteria for quality and rigour, the fact that each one can only count as “one” in performance tables and that only two vocational qualifications can be counted overall reinforces the popular but misguided impression that vocational qualifications cannot be intrinsically worthwhile. This is a damaging outcome because vocationally-related STEM qualifications, particularly those in engineering, that are vital to UK industry, that provide learners with excellent progression opportunities within and outside of STEM, prepare them properly for future work in vital sectors of the economy and are therefore valuable. The changes implemented by the Department for Education over recent months do nothing to encourage uptake of such important qualifications—particularly by pupils also able to attain well in academic qualifications such as those included in the English Baccalaureate.

13. Government needs to ensue and monitor that all young people have the opportunity to choose appropriate vocational qualifications and/or mix vocational qualifications with academic qualifications. This freedom of choice would require that the new Academies and Free schools are incentivised so that they can provide these vocational routes and not simply opt for the English Baccalaureate route for all their students.

14. Technology’ in schools is taken here to represent both Design & Technology and ICT. ICT (and Computing more generally) has moved centre stage over the past few months through a series of events helped by the speech by Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google in August 2011 in which he roundly criticised the UK’s education system and said he was “flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn’t even taught as standard in UK schools,” The speech was widely reported. On 13 January 2012, the Royal Society published the Shut Down or Restart? report18 continuing a discussion about computing in school started in the Livingstone & Hope NextGen report.19 Both reports make it clear that the current ICT curriculum in English schools results in a pedestrian approach that overemphasizes mundane learning about IT tools such as word processors, and does not promote the acquisition of the broader computing knowledge and rigorous engineering skills that would keep Britain at the forefront of a global digital economy. In the same week, the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announced far-reaching changes to the ICT national curriculum, in a speech at BETT20 and subsequently the DfE announced a consultation exercise on the future of the ICT curriculum.21 On 11 June 2012, the disapplication of the programmes of study for ICT in England was confirmed by the Department for Education.

15. The depth of feeling expressed by some in industry over ICT and computing has been seen elsewhere for D&T.22 The subject struggles to shake of a dreary image, the quality of the experience provided in schools is patchy and generally the subject is in need of modernisation.23 D&T teachers recognise this and are keen to work on reforms to the subject.24

16. Both ICT and D&T provide, in different but complementary ways, unique opportunities for pupils to gain justified confidence in their abilities to make things that work. This worthwhile outcome from practical STEM learning is particularly valued by the engineering profession.

17. The greater focus on Apprenticeships by both the current and previous governments is welcome. However, analysis of the trends easily seen in public data25 shows that whilst there has been excellent growth overall, the proportion of Apprenticeship starts, at both Intermediate and Advanced levels, that are in engineering or construction has been dropping since 2007–08. In terms of apprenticeship completions, this dilution is particularly acute amongst under-19s undertaking Advanced apprenticeships in engineering. The concern is that public policy makers might view the strong growth in apprenticeships overall as “job done” for promoting growth whereas a detailed inspection of the data shows that the engineering and construction apprenticeships, those most readily connected with a sustainable, rebalanced economy, are not growing as rapidly as the headline figures suggest. Government is urged to work with engineering employers to find new ways of stimulating further uptake of engineering and construction Apprenticeships and to ensure that training providers are incentivised to prioritise them.

18. The Committee and its members continue to provide deep support to University Technical Colleges through curriculum development, assistance with teaching and learning, and CPD for UTC teachers. UTCs provide an exemplar of what excellent 14–19 technical (most commonly engineering) education looks like. However these excellent institutions can only make a certain contribution to the engineering skills needs of the country as their number will always be limited. Therefore, more needs to be done to raise the status of technical subjects in more general schools and colleges. The Department for Education has a significant role to play in helping create a positive identity for the technical qualifications it endorses for inclusion in school performance tables. This must go beyond merely including them on a list—the Department for Education must ensure that everything necessary for their expansion is secure. This includes: awareness amongst school leaders, positive messaging from the Department for Education and securing sufficient skilled teachers. Currently, this is being left entirely to Awarding Bodies and to the engineering profession. Government should play its part.

19. Technical STEM qualifications are a significant component of the FE & Skills system.26 However the value (to the individual, employers and the economy) of level 3–4 vocational and occupational learning is not widely promoted and employers say they find it difficult to keep up to speed with qualifications which are under seemingly constant revision. Therefore, employers, those commissioning contracts and other customers are looking for an over-arching sign that skilled trades and associate professional workers are deemed to be competent. Professional registration can provide this and the engineering profession sees voluntary registration as a solution. However, in the somewhat stratified UK social context, professional registration at Technician level has remained fairly invisible for nearly 50 years. The first thing required to remedy the situation is raising awareness of the science and engineering registered Technician standards and the raising of aspiration and recognition through Technician registration (RSciTech, EngTech and ICTTech)—work already started by the Technician Council.27 However, the engineering profession cannot do this on its own and Government must engage with the engineering profession to promote Technician registration to the wider public as well as to employers—and enable through procurement.

20. More needs to be done to attract a more diverse technically skilled workforce. Only 6% of people in engineering occupations are women and only 5% are from minority ethnic groups.28 The origins of this lack of diversity may be based in young people’s attitudes towards engineering as a career choice—so drawing on less than half of any cohort. For example, only 37% of 12–16 year olds and 31% of 17–19 year olds in the UK see engineering as a desirable career.29 This varies with gender.30 Another survey found that in the UK only 18% of young women but 50% of young men might be willing to become engineers. However, it may also be based on “reality”—lack of retention of a more diverse workforce in some engineering firms —which perhaps points to a need for more widespread culture change in business practice. A compact is required between Government, employers, schools & colleges and the engineering profession to create a positive identity for engineering careers and to ensure that this is cast inclusively. On a practical note, the profession is still waiting for Advanced Apprenticeship average pay scales to be widely publicised. It was noted by the Equal Opportunities Commission some years ago that the invisibility of substantial difference in training pay between, for example, social care and electrotechnical Advanced Apprenticeships hampered informed choice-making.

June 2012