Engineering and industry¿the hidden hunger

For many decades now, the performance of the UK as a manufacturing nation has been in steady decline in comparison with that of other major manufacturing nations, until, in 1984, for the first time in the history of the UK, more manufactured goods were imported than exported. Throughout this period, nothing that has been done in the country has made any difference to the trends, whether it be economic measures, higher education growth or political change. In the view of the author, there must be some very deep-seated reason for the obduracy of the trends, and it is his assertion that the country is in need of a fundamental re-direction of education so that the skills of designing and making become a major sector, indeed a spinal column, of the curriculum. The activities of designing and making are part and parcel of the very fabric of our culture, and are the roots of our manufacturing industry; however, for too long, education has been treating them as activities for the less able. Designing and making ought to be regarded as every bit as important as reading, writing and arithmetic. The author goes on to argue that an understanding of industry should be an essential part of the make-up of the education of a person, as significant as an understanding of literature, history or science. The lack of grounding in designing and making, and the lack of understanding of industry constitutes `the hidden hunger¿ from which the UK suffers, and which, in the author´s view, is one of the fundamental reasons for our sluggish industrial performance. So long as the plant, i.e. our industrial culture, has its roots in unfriendly soil, then trimming and rearranging the upper branches will not make it into a healthy plant. It needs nourishment through its roots from the soil. We need to become an industrially educated nation.