An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

66A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILeducation authorities, teacher organisations and others active in this field. Pupils, parents andteachers were all told of employment opportunities in engineering within four broadgroupings: Multi-skilled Craftspeople, Engineering Technicians, Incorporated Engineers andChartered Engineers. Five engineering categories were used, broadly based upon the EngC’sfive Executive Group Committees:civil, structural, construction and building services;manufacturing systems, mechanical and production;electrical, electronic and information technology;process industries such as food, chemicals and minerals;transport.Also aimed at young people, a careers’ pamphlet ‘Engineering for People’ was developedduring 1988 explaining how teenagers could become involved in the teamwork of modernengineering, and at the same time drawing attention to the fact that professional engineerswere well paid.In February 1988 the EngC, jointly with the Society of Education Officers, produced astatement ‘16-19 Education and Training’. This aimed to give this age group a broader andmore balanced experience in education and training. By welcoming routes other than A-Levelit also indicated a wider gateway into higher education.On the Government’s National Curriculum Design and Technology Working Group, chairedby Lady Margaret Parkes, the EngC was represented by the Director General, Denis Filer.The Group’s report was issued during 1989 and accepted by the Secretary of State. As aconsequence the EngC’s Director – Industry and Regions, Graham Anthony, was invited bythe School Examination and Assessment Council to join the Committee on Technology.Following up on the National Curriculum, a conference was organised by the EngC in July1989 and held in Lincoln for initial teacher trainers, local education authority advisers andinspectors to consider Technology in the National Curriculum for primary schools.Contributors included Nick Stuart, Deputy Secretary for the DES and Jim Rose, ChiefInspector, HMI. Implications for training at national and local levels, implications forclassroom practice, mechanisms for implementing change, and the provision of resourcesfrom industrial links were debated by reviewing the report of the Design & TechnologyCurriculum Working Group.‘Engineering the Future – A view from the Schools’ was published in January 1990 by theEngC with the Secondary Heads’ Association to reform courses for 16-18 year olds as aresult of the National Curriculum being introduced into all schools in the UK.Recommendations were made as to how the Government could address the on-going shortageof science and mathematics teachers. Then in May, to stimulate industrial employers to helpschools teach technology as part of the National Curriculum, Unilever, with the NationalCurriculum Council and the DTI, sponsored a booklet ‘Creating the Future’; this waspublished jointly by the EngC and the Standing Conference on Schools, Science andTechnology (SCSST) and was distributed to 25,000 companies after the DES published theStatutory Orders for Technology in 1990. In November the EngC published a seminar report‘Accommodation Resources to Teach Science and Technology in the National Curriculum’.© Engineering Council UK 2004