National entries for GCSE D&T are now at their lowest point, approximately 82,000 nationally in the UK. If the number of students studying the subject continue on their current trajectory, D&T will no longer remain a viable subject for UK schools.
Why are the numbers still falling?
Covid-19 caused a radical rethink of how we deliver education, with teachers stepping into the void and adapting their approaches to ensure students continued in their studies whilst the world around them shut down due to the global panic. As an ex teacher who’s last lesson was to a class of coughing students awaiting the imminent closure of schools in England, it was a scary time for everyone involved in secondary education. My wife continued to teach her subject remotely, whilst I took on the responsibility of home schooling my two primary school daughters (and entertaining a two year old).
Many schools looked to support students by sending home physical packs of resources, materials, books and equipment, attempting to recreate aspects of the national curriculum or KS4/5 courses students were now having to complete under demanding contexts. Many students were in difficult situations with parents sick, out working all day, or struggling to retain employment and avoid bringing the risk of infection into the home.
D&T, for its part, was a subject significantly impacted by home schooling and remote learning. Much of what could continue had to be on the basis of low risk (where practical activities were being completed), and for those lacking access to digital tools and devices, much of what could continue under the heading of design and technology was sketching, ideation and model making. Avoiding the rabbit hole that is the epistemology or lack of for the subject, D&T took a back seat to core subjects and those that remote learning could better facilitate.
Did this situation cause the recent decline in national numbers. Perhaps. Many centres will have had to take difficult decisions to cut curriculum time, reduce subject options, and make savings in order to adapt the school for a new post lock down world. A situation we are yet to fully achieve as schools continue to send bubbles, year groups and staff home to avoid the spread of specific variants. D&T numbers are low, but in other subjects, numbers have grown disproportionately to the growth of specific ages and demographics of students. Even with more children choosing to study general qualifications, the gains in other subjects is proportionately greater, which makes the decline in D&T all the more worrying.
Teachers of the subject have worked hard over the past year and more to try to drag the subject forward. Remote learning schemes of work were littered across Twitter for a time, and free software and model making activities became more common. In some respects, this has been positive and a shift away from the material based making activities seen at KS3 or during KS4 and 5 courses. But the trend for the subject is that of further regression against its competitor subjects. Computer Science has moved to onscreen assessment allowing students to design and test programming skills as an exam. Physical education has continued to expand into niche and smaller sports to encourage take up. Vocational pathways continue to gain traction with industry and employers, with only Higher Ed left to quantify the value they offer to students as a routine to level 3 and 4 study. D&T has yet to take a significant step.
What can be done?
In reality, many subjects are now looking inward at their content, their design and their future proofing, and need to evolve in response to a potential post Covid landscape for education. The move to onscreen learning, remote teaching, new ways to capture evidence of application and understanding, and a new priority list of skills for the future is already here, and will only continue to become more important. Many schools have phased out dated subjects and developed their own courses such as “leadership” and “researching”, skills and qualifications that apply to more careers and sit across industries. D&T still struggles to scrape off the legacy of CDT and the materials that coined the terms “wood shop”, “metal working” and “technical drawing”.
What we need is drastic action
I’ve championed for many years, the idea of completing giving up on D&T all together, and creating something new. A recent conversation with the dean at a leading UK University Design course indicated that he has identified a need to move on, building a first year programme combining programming of sensory technology with creative HCD led approaches that develop a unique skill set that would adapt to any environment, not just those jobs in design. Aesthetics were moving aside, and applied testing and a scientific approach to innovation were taking their place. The proposals looked considerably evolved from when I started my degree in 2001. To be part of the eco system of design education, HE were taking drastic steps. Could education programmes earlier in the journey follow suit? Yes, but here are my barriers to this happening:
- Teachers are not correctly skilled and prepared to change, nor is there the collective desire to. Too many are defending what we have, rather than projecting to what D&T could be.
- Funding in schools is at an all time squeeze, and the removal of the subject rather than its cost effective evolution is an easier action to take.
- Leadership in design education continues to revolve around the same names, the same conversations, the same meetings without any action points, with only slightly evolving perspectives on the issue seeming to be shared within the community. More radical attitudes need to take centre stage.
- The direction of travel for design education (and all education) feels to be towards content driven policy, rather than the value derived from creative skills and similar outcomes from well taught design.
- There is a strong desire by everyone to retain making of things at the core of design and technology, and fundamentally, this devalues the subject as less academic.
In reality, we may be too late for D&T to be revived. A tipping point will be reached with exam board, schools, ITT providers, and other connected stakeholders, where D&T just does not financially stack up. If the subject doesn’t make you money, you move to where the money is, and D&T is not a money making subject in secondary education. The slight revival of primary is positive, but you would be foolish to believe that launching a business to sell to D&T education customers would be anything more than a declining market.
Here is an action plan
Look at the space design education should sit in, and create a curriculum that is unique to any other subject. This cannot be an exercise of saying that we “apply what is learnt in X, Y and Z subject”, this has to be unique content. I can think of loads that we could list, but this has to be shaped by the collective of the design education community, not by progressive individuals.
Next, shape that curriculum in a way that is easy to sell to all industries, and easy to communicate. We need employers and HE to understand what a student that does “this” course can do.
Finally, provide free at the point of demand training to everyone who wants to be still working in design education, and build a really strong community of people who share and support one another. Only through that collective focus can this all be achieved.
Declining numbers nationally are worrying, and we may be too late to resuscitate the subject. Only through radical action can we turn this around. The decline has been a slow car crash to this point over the past 10 years, its time to put an electric shock into the body and revive the brain.
Phil Holton 