Editorial

Citation

Holden, R. (2009), "Editorial", Education + Training, Vol. 51 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2009.00451aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Education + Training, Volume 51, Issue 1

Towards the end of 2008 I noticed on article on manufacturing in the UK. Despite all the recessionary doom and gloom this was a success story. The UK is the world’s sixth largest manufacturer. It has outstripped the rest of the economy by increasing its productivity by 50 per cent since 1997. Revelatory as this news was, for me anyway, it was a smaller item in the same article that really interested me. This was mention of the UK’s government plans to launch something called Manufacturing Insight in 2009. I explored further. This is what the Government’s document Manufacturing: New Challenges, New Opportunities (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, 2008) says:

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  Industry and representative bodies in partnership with the Government will establish Manufacturing Insight, a body tasked with making the public perception of manufacturing reflect the reality of a successful, modern and broad sector and ensuring young people are aware of the exciting career opportunities available. It will develop the evidence base and communication strategies to inform public debate, liaise with the media and work to improve careers guidance, strengthening links between schools and careers services and the manufacturing sector.

It is modelled on Enterprise Insight which has promoted enterprise education and training both in school and in further and higher education over recent years. Whilst it would be unrealistic to suggest the genuine developments in our understanding and provision of enterprise education and training solely at the door of Enterprise Insight, undoubtedly it has played its part. As, indeed, in a modest way, has Education + Training.

Manufacturing Insight would seem to sit comfortably with a whole bundle of transition issues. Three illustrations will suffice here. Firstly, that of perceptions about careers. Whilst the failure of Lehman Brothers may work at one level to temper the attractiveness of careers in the City there remain mountains to climb in raising the status of manufacturing and engineering in the eyes of young people. In Britain an engineer who designs particle accelerators shares the same taxi with the bloke who fixes dodgy boilers. Secondly, the disappointing figures on the numbers young women who pursue careers in manufacturing and engineering. We have token females pursuing modern apprenticeships in manufacturing, construction and engineering. Only 14 per cent of engineering students within higher education are female. And worse still, the majority of these do not go into careers in the industry. Thirdly, and perhaps most worrying of all, is the decline of young people with intermediate manufacturing and engineering skills. According to the Engineering Technology Board, albeit pre-recession, employment in management, associate and technician level jobs is increasing. Yet the same body reports a 26 per cent redution in further education students studying engineering and technology over the last three years.

It would indeed be a shame in Manufacturing Insight struggles to make a mark amidst the predicted carnage across all sectors of the British (and global?) economy. It may even get strangled at birth, despite the strength of its cause and, if Enterprise Insight is anything to go by, the very real contribution it could make. Irrespective of the success or failure of this specific Government initiative Education + Training could usefully raise its game somewhat in terms of reporting the research, debating the questions and in this way promoting and raising the profile of the issues of importance on this particular aspect of the transition from education into work.

I recall a rather dry “careers talk” when I was in the sixth form at school from a director of a local paper manufacturer. It was probably one of the main reasons I chose to do Sociology at university. Today, though, I sense a changing landscape. I understand that Scottish schools have links with NASA’s space centre in Houston. The Rolls Royce web site, for example, appears to offer an impressive array of engaging opportunities and resources for young people of all ages, whilst Shell run what looks like an amazing competition called Eco-Marathon where teams of young people address the very topical issue of fuel efficiency. Universities up and down the land are engaged in partnership work which provides superb placement and intern opportunities for the few that choose such pathways. In such circumstances would I have chosen manufacturing or engineering as a career pathway? Who knows? Certainly some of these initiatives make me wish I could wind back the clock. Importantly, though, I am not advocating that E+T simply report such practice. Education + Training’s role is to encourage evaluation, critical analysis of such practice and provide the opportunity for such research to be disseminated. It is to enquire and assess how real change can best be made to perceptions about the relative worth of different careers and to evaluate initiatives which seek to address long standing barriers, disadvantage and inequity in the transition from school and university into work. It is to offer opportunity, internationally, for comparison and analysis of difference.

Following the success of the case study article (O’Donnell et al., No. 5, 2008) on graduate development within Kentz Engineering and Construction, a special issue of Education + Training will be devoted to skills development in the global construction industry, focusing on the younger end of the labour market, led in part by Kentz’s chief executive and their Group HRD Director. It is to be hoped that others will respond to this challenge. Of course, this whole theme is not the only game in town. Education + Training will continue to cover a wide range of topics which are part of the complex relationship between the world of education and that of work. But it is high time manufacturing, engineering, indeed technology generally, gained the presence it deserves.

Rick Holden