An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

68A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILthe first organisation to alert the country to the shortage of teachers in key subjects. In June1988, for example, a statement on ‘Securing the Future – The Shortage of Mathematics andPhysics Teachers’ was published jointly with the Headmasters’ Conference and theSecondary Heads’ Association, following a research report prepared for the three bodies byProfessor Smithers and Dr Robinson at the University of Manchester. The report had beencommissioned by the EngC because of concern over the possibility that in the proposals forthe Core Curriculum science might comprise less than 20%, regardless of Kenneth Baker’swishes. The Junior Minister for Education, Robert Dunn, visited the EngC offices to discussthe joint statement and arranged for his officials to meet the report’s authors to examine theirfindings in depth.In the following March (1989), the EngC submitted oral and written information to the Houseof Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts following the publication of‘Securing the Future’. Denis Filer told the Select Committee “Government action has beentaken during the last two years but those initiatives have not had enough effect. Drastic actionis needed. The EngC believes that the keys to obtaining the right number of teachers of theright quality are: good salaries, appropriate levels of status, and proper resourcing of schoolsso that teachers have the tools for the job”.To create a new generation of teachers with an understanding of the national economy and ofthe practices of industry and commerce, six teacher training institutions in Eastern Englandformed a consortium with the EngC in 1988. This was supported by local Industrial Affiliatesand a grant of £50,000 from the Training Agency under its Enterprise in Higher Educationscheme. The resultant Eastern Region Teacher Education Consortium (ERTEC) comprisedHomerton College, Cambridge, the University of Cambridge Education Department, theUniversity of East Anglia, Essex Institute of Higher Education, Bedford College of HigherEducation and Hatfield Polytechnic. Five conferences were held during 1989, each for 50 to80 employees or representatives of consortia members, students, ECROs, Industry Affiliates,the Training Agency, Local Education Authorities, the National Association of Governorsand Managers, the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, Action forGovernor Information and Training, and the Society of Education Officers. At the end of thisdevelopment year, the consortium was awarded a further £1m grant from the TrainingAgency, spread over 5 years. The total cost of the project was estimated as £2.25m with £1mpledged from educational institutions and £0.25m from industry. This project offered, duringthe five-year period, to 10,000 student teachers on BEd and Post-Graduate Certificate ofEducation courses at the six centres in Eastern England, work placements and enterpriseexperience in industry and commerce. A progress report was published in September 1990.An additional £1m of consortium members’ own money was committed and industrialcollaboration worth at least another £500,000 was contributed. The ECROs in the EngCEastern and Chiltern regions became involved in this project.All this work on the schools’ front was soon to be supported by the substantial EngC/Gatsby‘Technology Enhancement Programme’ on material resources, as we shall describe inChapter 5.© Engineering Council UK 2004