Professional Engineering

You often hear politicians talking about the need for “joined-up” thinking. It’s one of those intangible, catch-all phrases that is supposed to indicate clarity of activity within Whitehall’s corridors of power.

Yet every so often a policy alteration comes along that clearly undermines any such ambitions. And the recent downgrade in the value of vocational qualifications was an example of that. What began as a well-meaning response to the Wolf review of education, being intended as a means of simplifying the academic landscape by slashing the number of “equivalent” qualifications, actually risks having a huge detrimental effect on our sector.

From 2014, the number of vocational qualifications that will count towards a school’s GCSE performance in league tables will be cut from 3,000 to 70. This is an attempt to stop schools encouraging youngsters to take qualifications that boost league table positions but do not help a pupil’s prospects. Surely no one would argue with that.

But the devil is in the detail. It transpires that, while engineering diplomas will still count towards GCSE league tables, worryingly they will be downgraded to count for just one GCSE instead of the previous five. When you bear in mind that an engineering diploma takes about 20 hours study time a week, this downgrade is a sure-fire way of deterring schools from offering the subject. It is also naïve, at best, to expect young people to spend all day studying for one qualification when in the same period their friends can achieve four or five. That certainly doesn’t smack of joined-up thinking at a time when the government has been on record as saying that we need more budding engineers coming through the academic system. 

This body-blow comes hot on the heels of some more concerning statistics that can be traced back as a direct corollary of political decision making, albeit from the previous administration. UCAS figures show that the rise in university tuition fees is already deterring students from taking degrees in vital subjects. While the fall-off in engineering was, at 1.3%, relatively small compared with some subjects, its importance is magnified by predictions of dangerous skills shortages that are set to hit the UK.

All the research shows that we will need young engineering talent more than ever to help the country’s economy pick up. If we are to recover we need engineers to help boost manufacturing industries, to ensure secure and low-carbon energy supplies and to develop major projects like HS2. Ultimately the drop in student numbers may also lead to job cuts at some universities with effects on engineering departments that will be difficult to reverse.

So what action needs to be taken? The government needs to link higher education policy to its plans for economic growth, and that means reducing tuition fees for subjects like engineering that are of long-term value to the economy. And it needs to progressively write-off debt for students with degrees in strategically important subjects who achieve agreed professional qualifications in a related occupation. It should also underwrite university engineering departments for three years to ensure continuity of provision.

These are worrying times for engineering within academia. The government needs to show it appreciates the severity of the skills shortage problem afflicting the sector, and it must rectify recent mistakes.