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Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered engineering skills and design and technology education.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I have called this debate because I believe that the future of engineering and design and technology education is central to the challenges facing our economy today. An under-skilled workforce limits a company’s—and, in turn, the country’s—growth prospects. If our labour supply does not match our jobs market, the result is simple: companies will either relocate or, potentially, close. That is a massive threat facing businesses in my constituency and our country.
We must be bold. We cannot just tinker around the edges and hope for the best—not if we want to fulfil the infamous long-term economic plan, support British businesses, boost productivity and give young people a fair shot in life by encouraging them to study subjects that are more likely to lead to employment. The UK is the 11th biggest manufacturer in the world. We are competitive in our ability to research and develop highly specialised technologies. However, to maintain our influence, we must focus on exports and address the UK’s productivity crisis. Since 2013, the UK’s productivity has been stagnating. That is simply unacceptable and needs addressing.
We have a severe shortage of engineers. According to the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the country will need almost 2 million more engineers in the next seven years. I repeat: 2 million. That is a flabbergasting figure. Each week, I visit businesses in my constituency, and time and again the same message is echoed: they are struggling to hire adequately skilled staff. Shockingly, some businesses are considering the possibility of relocating. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills estimates that companies are struggling to fill 43% of their STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—vacancies because of the skills gap.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate about such an important topic. Does she agree that it is not just the commercial sector that is affected? The shortage of skills in the wider economy also has an impact on our military, who train people in STEM subjects; the Royal Navy has one engineer for every two it would like in some sectors, because of private sector companies desperately trying to recruit people with the skills in which it provides training.
Michelle Donelan
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. The shortage of STEM skills is vast across a number of sectors, and we need to face that. In the military, the private sector and the public sector, it is a big problem facing us. Also on that point, there is a problem with the numbers of females and of people from socially deprived backgrounds in STEM. We must try to make the industry much more representative. The number of women in engineering is just 6%. Something needs to be done to address that.
A business in my constituency, Alford Technologies, summed the situation up well in an email to me. It said:
“Engineering is sadly underrated in the UK. Britain needs to do something to raise the profile of engineering, to make it something more people aspire to do. In order to stay at the forefront of the modern, technological world, the Government really needs to invest in encouraging the next generation of great engineers, designers and innovators.”
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She says that the Government must do more to engage and promote engineering, but does she agree that there is also an important role for businesses to play? They should be getting out there, into primary and secondary schools, promoting their business and showing what they do behind what might appear to be closed doors to families and children, who often do not know what engineering means until it is too late.
Michelle Donelan
I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which I will touch on in a minute. I completely agree: the link between business, companies and education needs to be aligned much better. There is a big stigma and misconception about this sector, and the only way in which we can myth-bust is by introducing young people to real people in the industry, who will tell them what life is like in the job.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that businesses are already doing a great deal in this area? In my constituency, Marshall does a great job of inspiring young people to go into engineering and aerospace, and yesterday I met representatives of TWI, a company just outside my constituency, which is doing the same. However, businesses need to do more and they need to do it at an early stage if they are to inspire young people at the ages of six, seven and eight to get involved in engineering.
Michelle Donelan
Yes. I thank my hon. and learned Friend. Again, I will touch on that point in a minute, but I totally agree. The problem is that there is inconsistency. A number of businesses and schools in my constituency are also doing an excellent job, but not every school is offering the same link with businesses and not every business is engaging as much as it could be.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend; she is being intervened on a lot by hon. Friends, and I am sure that we are all providing her with excellent advice—I hope she will take it in that spirit.
I am the co-chair of the all-party group on design and innovation, so I have an interest in this area. Will my hon. Friend comment on the link that there should be between the sectors that she is talking about and education? We recently had a meeting with the Minister to discuss whether this subject could be included in the English baccalaureate. I understand the reluctance about that, but will my hon. Friend comment on the relationship with education generally?
Michelle Donelan
The main thrust of my speech is about the EBacc, so I will leave that point and my hon. Friend can eagerly anticipate what I will say in a few moments.
Michelle Donelan
Linking education with business can be done in a variety of ways. The most important way is to get businesses into schools to talk to children face to face. Only a certain amount of information can be had from books and the media, and if we continue to perpetuate stereotypes, we will not get anywhere. That is the reality.
To go back to my speech, we must support businesses such as Alford. We must inspire the next generation of thinkers and create an innovation-hungry economy. Britain needs more businesses making more things, designing more things, inventing more things and exporting more things. We must recognise that engineering and manufacturing are an important part—indeed, a vital part—of Britain’s economic future.
What is the answer to all these problems? We need to improve our careers education system, starting at primary school age. Studies show that from age six children rule out careers. That is just perpetuating the stereotyping and the reluctance of girls to enter this industry. We need to strengthen further the links with local businesses and to increase the emphasis that we place on local labour market intelligence, so that we inform our young people about local opportunities and the best career choices and options are available to them.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to my fellow Wiltshire MP from my home town of Chippenham for initiating this debate. Does she concur that one of the great opportunities in Wiltshire is provided by QinetiQ? That company provides thousands of apprenticeships in science and technology, and there is its initiative with the 5% Club to target high investment in apprenticeships, so that local people in Wiltshire can see the opportunities for apprenticeships in science and technology at age 18 locally. That is a good start on the journey that my hon. Friend will take us on this morning.
Michelle Donelan
I thank my hon. Friend, who is right. I know at first hand the work that that company is doing in Wiltshire, especially in the area of apprenticeships, which is vital for our economy and for giving young people the opportunity to experience these industries from a younger age. We need to run more schemes like that.
I believe that we need to go further and measure schools on destination reporting—reporting on what careers young people go into—so that we can better measure what is happening. However, this is really all quite simple. To make our economy more productive, we need to make our education system more productive. To put it another way, we need to wake up to the fact that we need to align the business sector and the education sector and ensure that they are working much more to support each other.
The Government have already done quite a lot in this area, and I do not want to overlook that. They have recognised the need to focus on STEM with initiatives such as STEMNET, providing £6.3 million a year to run a number of programmes. That includes more than 28,000 STEM ambassadors. The Big Bang Fair is another initiative that I have seen at first hand in Wiltshire, and Wiltshire College is doing an excellent job of celebrating STEM for young people in the UK. There is also the “Your Life” campaign, which is increasing the number of pupils taking on A-level physics and maths.
University technology colleges are another fantastic way to address the STEM shortage, and I am delighted that more than 55 UTCs will be open by 2017, catering for more than 33,000 students. A number of other initiatives focus on further education and university education, of which the most important is the removal of the cap on university places for STEM subjects. Those are all great initiatives, but we still face a huge skills gap that is threatening our economy.
I believe that the answer to addressing the skills gap lies in the new design and technology GCSE course. For too long, design, technology and engineering subjects have been misunderstood, stigmatised and stereotyped, which is quite ironic given that the skills shortage means that we are in dire need of encouraging more young people to pursue those careers. It is also ironic given that all those subjects give students the best shot at getting highly valued, highly paid jobs, and given the UK’s productivity crisis. Those in the know—business leaders—see design and technology as an essential part of the UK’s remaining a global leader in product design. If we are to plug the ever-growing skills gap and address our rather shameful productivity crisis, we must listen to business and act urgently.
Education is the key to addressing the skills shortage, and design and technology is a key part of that. Entries for the D and T GCSE have declined by 18% since 2010—a decline that, at 26% over the five-year period, is even more dramatic among girls. In addition, the recruitment of D and T teachers has hit an all-time low. Since 2010, their number has fallen by 2,300, and the number of teaching hours has fallen by 16%.
The Government are rightly pushing ahead on ensuring that education is vigorous and gives students the core skills they need for the workplace. It is vital that the Ebacc remains purely academic, ensuring that students leave education with the skills that they need to get on in life. I fully support that. However, the push towards the Ebacc in its current form threatens to undermine any progress being made to address the stigma associated with technology and engineering. I would like the vastly improved D and T GCSE to be included as an option of the science element of the Ebacc. There is huge support for that within the business community and the teaching community—not just in my constituency and not just in Wiltshire, but across the country. They are crying out for this change, and something needs to be done.
Figures vary, but estimates suggest that there are about 54,000 vacancies for the 1,200 graduate engineers each year. That is a brake on business and a drag on the economy. Let me be clear: I am asking not for a U-turn in the policy, but for a minor change to strengthen, improve and safeguard the Ebacc given the scientific and academic nature of the new D and T GCSE. There will be no outcry from vocational subject pressure groups, such as art, music and religious education, as that is a totally different debate.
There is a precedent for the change in the example of computer science. In recognition of the changing economy, the former information and communications technology qualification was revamped as computer science to cater for the economic need for computer programmers and the shortfall in the digital industries. Yet the skills shortages in design, manufacturing and engineering are far vaster, so surely the case is much more pressing.
Without a technology and engineering element to the Ebacc, young people do not have the opportunity to taste those subjects and thus gain a greater insight into those careers. Yes, they can do the core subjects such as maths and science, which can lead them on to a university place or an apprenticeship in such fields, but why would they do that if they had never actually tasted D and T and had no real concept of what it means? In fact, they will not, as the evidence shows us. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of A-level entries for D and T fell by more than 24%, which indicates that the decline in the GCSE is having a further impact that is knocking on through the STEM pipeline.
The Government are committed to 3 million new apprenticeship schemes. Ensuring that D and T is part of the Ebacc will help towards that goal. A taster in a technical course will encourage people to go on to do a technical apprenticeship. I encourage the Minister to utilise the same foresight used with computer science by introducing the newly improved and very scientific D and T course as part of the Ebacc. Doing so would add to the image and value of the subject, and send out a message that D and T and engineering are science subjects that are core to the curriculum. After all, is not one of the key purposes of our education system to create the workforce of tomorrow?
Progress 8, in theory, measures students’ progress across eight subjects: English; maths; three other Ebacc subjects, which can be science, computer science, geography, history or languages; and three further subjects, which can be from a range of the Ebacc subjects or any other highly approved art, academic or vocational qualification. However, many schools—schools are telling me this—are pushing their students towards the academic subjects. Many students are taking more than the expected minimum of five subjects, resulting in D and T being squeezed into a single or double option box to compete with the likes of photography or dance for a single place among the students’ options. It would be tragic for the new, academically rigorous D and T GCSE still to be sidelined after all the work, time and money that has been invested in it.
Some will argue that the Ebacc is only five subjects from a GCSE programme of nine, but that does not really show an understanding of the situation we face. D and T is being marginalised. The brightest students overlook it because they do not perceive it as a scientific subject and because it does not have that Ebacc accreditation.
As a result of the hard work and commitment of the Minister, the James Dyson Foundation and the business community, the content of the new course, which will be launched in September 2017, is highly scientific and a vast improvement on the previous qualification. It encourages the innovation and creativity needed to boost UK productivity, and it is worthy of Ebacc status. The Minister has made some very good points, describing the new GCSE as “gold-standard”, and said:
“This is a rigorous qualification which will require students to have a sound grasp of maths and science, and which will undoubtedly stretch them to further develop the kind of knowledge and skills so sought after by employers and universities.”
Well, I agree. D and T is the only subject in which students put their maths and physics knowledge to a practical test. It is the only subject that gives a window into engineering careers, and it is the obvious pipeline for engineering talent. That view is shared by Sir James Dyson; Dr Rhys Morgan, director of education at the Royal Academy of Engineering; Paul Jackson, the chief executive officer of EngineeringUK; the Design and Technology Association; and hundreds of businesses that have contacted me in the past few weeks. We must listen to the experts and take action. Including the course within the Ebacc would help to challenge perceptions of the subject, and boost recruitment and take-up. There is a 57% recruitment shortfall in trainee D and T teachers, who are concerned over the subject’s future and status.
There are a number of other ways in which we can encourage young people to take engineering and D and T to safeguard the subject and their futures, and I do not deny that I have only really touched on one way today. I am sure that colleagues will go into further depth on other areas. I have focused on including the new D and T course within the Ebacc because I believe that it is crucial and very doable. The simple change is what business and the economy need. It would highlight that the Government understand the need to align the education system much more with the economy and to give our young the best opportunity in life.
We have a chance to include a new, robust and rigorous D and T course within the Ebacc as a science element, just as was done with computer science, to combat any negative perceptions and recognise the needs of the industry. It is unacceptable, at a time when we have such severe engineering shortages and a growing productivity crisis, that we are prioritising only the S and M, and not the T and E, of STEM. What is the point of all the programmes we have to encourage young people to consider a career in the sector if we are going to say that the new science-based D and T course is actually not really science? That is what this categorisation means—that it is not actually science—and it sends out the message that the subject is not important to the STEM agenda.
In conclusion, if we are to remain at the forefront of global product design, we must take action. Bolstering the D and T GCSE by its inclusion in the Ebacc is an important step to addressing the skills shortage, safeguarding the future of the subject, and supporting skills and businesses. As I said to the Prime Minister last month, the skills shortage is a ticking time bomb, and I urge the Minister to act now.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) for setting the scene so well on a subject that is of interest to us all. It is nice to see the Minister here, too. I look forward to his contribution. I also look forward to the speech of the shadow Minister. He and I celebrated Leicester City’s win against Newcastle last night as we march on to premier league success, so we have more reasons for smiling this morning than we normally do. As a Leicester City supporter of some 46 years, I must say that we have been through hard times, so it is good to enjoy the good times, too. I digress; we are here to discuss an important issue.
I have spoken on this issue many times in the House, and I have tabled questions and early-day motions. The need for MPs—and Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, as it is a devolved matter—to push for engineering skills and design and technology education has never been more important. When I first became a Member of Parliament in 2010, our unemployment rate was 5.4%; it is now down to 3.9%. To give credit where it is due, that is due to the Government’s economic policy and to our Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly, who have collectively encouraged job creation. In proportion to our size, job creation in Northern Ireland has matched job creation in south-east England.
Job creation in Northern Ireland is important, but we need a skilled workforce and young people coming through to take advantage of the many good jobs that have been created. The country needs to look to the future and produce a workforce that will allow the jobs of the future to come to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and be part of a resurging manufacturing sector in the high-skilled economy that we are trying to create. We in Northern Ireland are keen to benefit from that, and we have seen some benefits. We have seen economic growth in the Province, with more jobs than ever, but the jobs that have come have too often not offered the quality career that aspiring young people want and need. The jobs of the future will be located in the STEM sectors of our economy, which can make a real contribution towards establishing a more balanced economy across the whole country and producing a more sustainable economy in a volatile global market.
We have to respond to the market. Of course, many people would say that the market is uncertain, as the Chancellor seems to be indicating—we will probably know more about that after tomorrow’s Budget—which raises concern for the future. One reason why our economy was exposed during the recession was the lack of manufacturing jobs. We need to focus more on manufacturing. We cannot let all the manufacturing jobs go outside the United Kingdom. We cannot let other countries take advantage of lower workforce costs. We have to retain as much of our manufacturing base as we can.
When we talk about manufacturing jobs, of course, we have to take account of the fact that manufacturing is part of a global market, and it is near impossible to bring production line manufacturing jobs back to the United Kingdom. Simply, nations across the globe are undercutting us to such an extent that we would have to abolish the minimum wage even to try to compete, and we are not going to do that. We are going in the opposition direction, and the Prime Minister and the Government have committed to introducing the living wage, which is a welcome development. With that in mind, we must seek to bring in high-end manufacturing jobs—the jobs of the future of which I spoke—which require a highly skilled workforce. Such a workforce can only be achieved by investing properly in this field of education, and in apprenticeships, so that we can be globally competitive once again.
We debated International Women’s Day last Tuesday, and a notable achievement of the push for STEM education in schools is that more than 40% of ambassadors in the STEM ambassador programme are women. In last night’s debate on Commonwealth Day, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) said that women were in very high places across the United Kingdom, as they should be. It was once a male-dominated industry with a male-dominated ethos and environment, but real change is now happening in the STEM sectors, and careers are open to all. I am encouraged by what the Northern Irish Minister for Employment and Learning, the Department for Employment and Learning and the Northern Ireland Assembly are doing. We have created a lot of apprenticeships for young people across the gender base. Many young girls are now taking up engineering as a job. The wage structure is such that new starters earn £30,000 to £35,000. Some people tell me that that is not a great wage, but it is a terrific wage for Northern Ireland. Such wages provide opportunity and keep our skill base at home. We want to see more of that.
I sit on the board of governors of Glastry College in my Strangford constituency. At our meeting last Thursday, the careers teacher had an opportunity to indicate some of the things that she was doing to ensure that young people at the school, and particularly young girls, saw engineering and the STEM industries as an opportunity. How do we do that? It is not just about the jobs; it is about pointing people in the right direction and bringing those two things together. In her introduction, the hon. Member for Chippenham mentioned “designer technology”—I wrote it down. That is what we need. We need to get our young people looking towards where those jobs are, which is important to me.
Shorts Bombardier has announced the bad news of job layoffs, but we are hopeful that that will make the company leaner, although maybe not meaner, and therefore more cost-effective, which will be a base from which the manufacturing base can hopefully bounce back. Last Thursday, the Minister for Skills announced more help for apprenticeships across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are all going to benefit—Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England—and perhaps the Minister for Schools will comment on that. I know that it is not his Department, but there are great opportunities to do more.
Indeed, there have been commendable efforts and STEM initiatives, particularly in schools. We need to ensure that those initiatives translate into results and that there are real returns on our investment. The Government have invested some £15 million, and we need results not just for the sake of the economy but for our young people who need to grow up with the security of a top-class career and wage so that they can cement their position here in the United Kingdom.
Despite those efforts, results have been disappointing, and I have some statistics. GCSE entries for design and technology declined by 18% between 2011 and 2014-15. The decline has been even more pronounced among girls, with entries falling by 26%, compared with 12% for boys over the same period. Will the Minister comment on that? Between 2011 and 2014-15, A-level entries for design and technology fell by 24%. Either the Government’s efforts have not taken hold or we need to consider a different way of doing it. I always like to be constructive in debates, so that is not a criticism. It is about how we can do it better and how we can find solutions and improvement.
Efforts have also been made in Northern Ireland’s higher education sector, where the Department for Employment and Learning has taken significant steps to focus on STEM and make changes in the further education sector, universities and colleges. In the 2015 autumn statement, the Government announced that from 2017-18, the equal and lower qualification fee exemption would be extended so that students wishing to take a part-time second degree in a wider range of STEM subjects would be eligible for tuition loans. Will the Minister comment on that?
In addition to supporting those in education, there has been some support for educators in the STEM sector. Trainee teachers in England with a first-class degree or a PhD in physics, chemistry, mathematics or computing are eligible for a bursary of £25,000, which is significant. The bursary for trainee teachers in physics with a first-class degree or a PhD will go up to £30,000 in 2016-17. Those are significant, positive changes to the bursary opportunities that are available.
Compared with November 2010, the number of design and technology teachers has fallen by 2,300, but the number of engineering teachers has risen by 100. Again, it seems that a change in education provision is needed. Have the Government made provision to ensure that there is a sufficient number of engineering teachers so that pupils can take advantage of that opportunity? The situation reflects decreased demand in schools, but it also prompts us to ask what point there is in incentives for teachers in the sector if we cannot even motivate students to take the subject.
There has been some success. In the year 2014-2015, there were 74,060 apprenticeship starts in the engineering and manufacturing technology sector. Absolutely significant steps forward have been taken if there are 74,000 apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing. It is the highest figure of all comparable years since 2011; that is a big step. There has been some success, but unfortunately, lower figures in schools should raise alarm bells. I urge the Government to act on that, for the sake not just of the economy but of the future of our young people, who want quality long-term and sustainable careers.
I am in the second half of life. Although not everyone in this room is, those of us who are must prepare our young people to come forward—our children, our grandchildren and other people’s children and grandchildren. Let us give them the job opportunities that we want for them. I want to see our young people stay in Northern Ireland; I certainly want them to stay within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That means Scotland staying in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well, by the way. [Interruption.] The hon. Members from the Scottish National party knew I was going to say that. It has been a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Chippenham for securing it and giving us a chance to participate.
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
Four people have indicated that they wish to speak. I want to call the Front-Bench spokespersons by half-past 10, so if subsequent speakers could confine their remarks to about seven minutes, I would be grateful. It will enable us to get everybody in.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak in this debate, Mr Bailey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this debate and on her detailed speech, which correctly highlighted the issues facing us.
I represent a constituency with a long, rich history of engineering. It has the dockyard, the Royal Engineers, Short Brothers, BAE Systems and now a growing digital and high-tech economy. The Royal Academy of Engineering has suggested, as my hon. Friend said, that there is an annual shortage of about 53,000 graduate engineers. We must encourage young people to get excited about a career in engineering and technology and to see the plethora of opportunities that are available if they choose engineering and design and technology as a career.
In my constituency, we are lucky enough to have an engineering and construction university technical college, which was opened in September. It gives 14 to 19-year-olds the opportunity to study those subjects, gaining academic qualifications and—this is also key—the skills required to go out into the workplace. We hear that employers value that very much, and it is what they look for in young people who study those subjects.
We particularly need to encourage girls, who are less likely to see engineering and design and technology as a route. Last week, on International Women’s Day, I was lucky enough to have some young women from the UTC come up here to showcase some of the work that they had carried out since starting there in September. They are doing their bit locally as well by running a “UTCs are for girls” campaign, but they rightly point out that the necessary change must start earlier, in primary and secondary schools, so that young people are completely aware of the opportunities and excitement that engineering can bring. That can be achieved only by offering the opportunity to study those subjects at GCSE level and by giving pupils good-quality careers advice while they study.
This year, BAE Systems has offered 12 higher-level apprenticeships at its Rochester site in my constituency. BAE is doing exciting design and highly technical manufacturing work in my constituency, and some people there have not always been aware of that work. BAE reports that the young people who came through the doors were aware of those 12 higher-level apprenticeships only because they had been guided by their parents or had friends or relatives who worked at BAE Systems.
Our UTC reports that it also has concerns and challenges in recruiting staff for the technology subjects. It is proving increasingly difficult as schools phase out some of those subjects. It is absolutely right that we should be able to attract high-quality people into such roles within our schools to ensure that they create the excitement that our young people need when choosing further careers. Businesses are doing their bit. For example, BAE Systems has an early years working group, a team of volunteers working to drive encouragement for future generations to consider engineering careers. BAE has increased engagement with the community, and has launched a brochure to inspire the workforce of the future which has been shared and delivered across 360 educational establishments in Kent.
BAE Systems is working to encourage young people, particularly in my constituency, to consider a route to a long, exciting career, with opportunities not only to work in the UK by fulfilling jobs available currently and in the future, but to dream of travelling and working in other countries. We are lucky: we have an international history of sending young people abroad with quality skills. I hope that we continue to increase that.
It is important that we can fulfil the requirement for such skills in future, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham has outlined. I support her call to re-include the design and technology GCSE in the EBacc. I was lucky enough to take the design and technology GSCE when I was at school, and I later became a marine surveyor. I had opportunities to travel all around the world, and I was not limited to one career option. I think we should focus on ensuring that we really understand what engineering means. Maybe that one word does not always highlight correctly what opportunities there are.
I know I am repeating myself, but it is important to labour this point. I would particularly like to mention careers advice. It is a challenge not just in my constituency but across the country. It is crucial that the teachers charged with teaching the young people in our schools can be educated on what opportunities and career choices there are in this field. It is not necessarily teachers’ fault if they are not aware of some of the opportunities available. I would like much more focus on how we train and brief our teachers to understand what opportunities there are, so they can impart them to our young people and be part of the challenge of engaging with local businesses to drive the situation from a school perspective, not just by bringing businesses into schools.
Thank you for allowing me to speak in this debate, Mr Bailey. I welcome what the Government have already done to focus on STEM subjects. The issue is always on the agenda now; we are talking about it more and more often. That is absolutely right, and I wish that to continue.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Bailey. Hopefully, from your perspective it will end up being a pleasure having to listen to me.
I thank the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) for securing this debate on what can be quite a wide-ranging topic. I will try to cover a few key aspects.
Before becoming a Member of the House, I worked as a civil engineer for more than 20 years, so I am well aware how the skills gap and the gender gap have exercised the engineering industry over those years. When I first graduated, it was the time of the recession in the early 1990s, which made jobs really difficult to come by and also deflated the wages that were available. The result was a constant drip-feed of fresh talent into other sectors, including the financial sector. That meant that when there was an inevitable upturn, there was a big skills shortage. I am well aware of that, but I can also say that over the past 20-odd years there has been a big improvement in trying to close these gaps and to raise awareness about engineering as a career.
I speak about engineering from my perspective, but quite often it might differ from other people’s perspectives about what constitutes an engineer. That can sometimes make it problematic to promote the concept of a career in engineering, because engineering is so wide-ranging. I recently visited some engineering workshops associated with the aerospace industry. Hands-on, high-quality manufacturing was in evidence, but again it was very different to what I saw as my career—latterly, I worked as a consultant, which is worlds away from that hands-on engineering environment. That in itself illustrates that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that can be conceived to fill the skills gaps across the broader engineering sector.
Having said that, it is clear that, fundamentally, what is required is the promotion of STEM subjects. STEM is an acronym that is widely used. However, as the hon. Member for Chippenham touched on, we really need to focus on the technology and engineering aspects of STEM; those aspects need to be more widely promoted and developed at school level.
I also served as a councillor for my local authority, East Ayrshire Council, which has introduced a STEM programme for primary children. Recently, I met Dr Peter Hughes, a former chief executive of Scottish Engineering. He said that East Ayrshire’s approach to STEM subjects, both in primary schools and through its business enterprise initiative for secondary schools, is world-leading. That shows what can be done when there is a drive in a local area, and obviously it would be good if that best practice was shared across the country.
The local college in my area, Ayrshire College, also works with industry to develop courses that the industry requires to fill its gaps. One example of that is working with wind farm operators to develop turbine technician courses. That gives some engineering-related courses a less intense academic focus, and instead balances the knowledge and understanding that is required with hands-on working. In civil engineering, I have also noted a return to the technician-engineer route. For me, there is no doubt that that can attract those who otherwise would not want to do a four-year degree course. In relation to the turbine course, obviously the cuts to subsidies for the renewables industry will not allow this industry to continue to grow. That is a shame, because the industry was getting to a stage where it could forge really sustainable careers for people.
These education initiatives accord with the wider Scottish National party Government’s determination to improve the take-up of STEM subjects in schools and to encourage a more diverse range of young people into STEM subjects and careers. Several initiatives underpin that. There has been a £1.5 million allocation to boost delivery of STEM subjects; there is a “Making Maths Count” initiative to drive up numeracy attainment; the Scottish Funding Council has provided funding for an additional 1,200 STEM subject places over four years; there has been an Inspiring Teachers recruitment campaign; and only last month, part of a £12 million transition training fund for the oil and gas sector was set aside to allow individuals from the sector to retrain as teachers and hopefully inspire a new generation. The SNP has also set up the general £100m Attainment Scotland Fund.
Higher education in Scotland is still free, which we are proud of. Again, that compares with the previous coalition Government trebling tuition fees to £9,000 a year, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that those fees can be a barrier to people entering higher education, which of course can impact on the engineering sector as well.
There is another risk caused by the UK Government that I have identified, which is the cut of funding for research and innovation. The move from innovation grants towards innovation loans has been decried by Bivek Sharma, who is the head of small business accounting at KPMG. We really should not be de-incentivising the industry when it has been making large strides to promote innovation and forge better links with education establishments.
Another issue in Scotland is the loss of the post-study work visa, which was particularly useful in the civil engineering industry to fill the skill gaps. Again, I have encountered that: at the place I worked, we had graduates who came from all over the world, but they had studied in Scotland and they were able at that time to stay in Scotland in that working environment. Not only had they contributed to education establishments; they then had an opportunity to contribute to the wider society, pay taxes and learn their careers, so I urge the UK Government to rethink.
As a civil engineer, I am a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which has developed some fantastic initiatives over the years that aim to inspire the next generation. In Scotland, outreach activity reached more than 5,000 pupils in 2015 alone. That activity includes the Bridges to Schools programme, which is a hands-on activity for primary year 6 and 7 pupils, enabling them to build a 12-metre long cable bridge. They build the bridge, and then they are able to walk on it, understand the loading on it, and deconstruct it. It is about teamwork, promotion of engineering and letting them understand that wider career.
ICE in Scotland also organises the rapid response engineering challenge, which covers first and second year pupils. It also hosts careers evenings and targeted events to increase diversity in the industry and works with Skills Development Scotland and Young Scot to get out appropriate messages about engineering career paths.
As a younger engineer, I participated in classroom visits myself, but given that I have not even managed to persuade my two sons to enter engineering, I am not sure I was the best advocate to encourage others. Nevertheless, I certainly enjoyed doing that and it is great that other people continue to do it.
Across the UK, ICE also works closely with STEMNET, asking members to sign up with ICE as STEM ambassadors. STEMNET works with schools, colleges and STEM employers to enable young people to meet inspiring role models, understand the real-world applications of STEM subjects and experience hands-on activities. Obviously, the intention is to motivate and inspire the pupils, and to bring learning and career opportunities to life for them. There have been more than 30,000 trained STEM ambassadors, of whom more than 40% are female—
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
Order. If the hon. Gentleman could wind up, I would be very grateful, as it would enable other speakers to participate in the debate.
Alan Brown
More than 40% of the STEM ambassadors and more than 60% of them are under the age of 25.
To conclude, industry, education establishments and the Scottish Government are making inroads in promoting STEM subjects. I agree with the hon. Member for Chippenham: we need a way to measure the impact of engagement with pupils and its results in their careers.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this important debate on the future of engineering skills, and of design and technology.
The UK has serious shortages in science, technology, engineering and mathematical skills. Although such shortages are not new, statistics show that many children choose not to study STEM subjects at a higher level. That is of concern to schools, universities, other training providers and especially employers. STEM subjects underpin many careers in technologically dependent sectors of the economy, including manufacturing and engineering. Almost 70% of research and development investment is in the manufacturing sector, and goods produced in this sector account for 44% of UK exports.
Engineering is also important for the northern powerhouse, which requires growth in manufacturing industry; alongside that growth, we also need to see the growth and development of the educational sector, to provide skills for such industries as they develop over time. Our modern economy needs the skills and abilities that STEM and design technology subjects bring. These subjects promote problem solving and practical skills, and are some of only a few subjects in the curriculum that develop hands-on skills.
Although the subjects can be challenging, there are plenty of opportunities on offer for motivated individuals to develop their abilities in real-world situations. Although we need people to do the academic subjects, so much of what we create not only has to achieve its basic function but must feel right. We need practical skills really to make a product, not just in terms of its performance function but in terms of feeling right when it is performing that function—for anything from creating a saucepan to creating all the components and elements that go into making a high-speed train, which, hopefully, will be discussed tomorrow by the Chancellor.
Pupils experience STEM directly through the curriculum, which means, as was highlighted earlier, that they mainly encounter only science and mathematics. However, many more career openings are on the engineering and technology side. Although it is important to enhance the prospects of pupils by ensuring that they receive a core academic curriculum, with employers in technical and skilled occupations reporting a shortage we cannot afford to overlook subjects that lead to careers in technology-dependent sectors of our economy. Just as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) has a background in civil engineering, I worked for nearly 20 years in the mass spectrometry industry. An academic background is necessary, but hands-on skills are also key, because so much of what is learned then has to be applied by the hands.
Hon. Members might be aware of the Your Life campaign, which aims to increase the number of people studying science and mathematics at A-level. It is welcome news that since 2010 the number of young people studying for science and mathematics A-levels has increased by about 29,000, but there is still much more to be done in the other STEM subjects of design and technology, and engineering. Teachers and employers must boost pupils’ understanding of the value of those subjects, including their relevance to the modern world and their transferability to a wide range of careers. Students should not be aiming for high grades irrespective of the subject they choose, just so the statistics look good. Subject options must be taken with career choices in mind and with the best possible careers advice.
Too much focus on the academic and not enough on skills and more practical applied learning will mean that the skills gap in the economy will increase. The future of the UK’s economy requires a fundamental change in how pupils choose their subjects, as this leads to their future career paths—into higher education or apprenticeships, or directly into employment. I regularly hear from businesses in my constituency that they are concerned that children are regularly pushed down the university route and actively—not just tacitly—pushed away from the apprenticeship alternative. I ask the Minister directly to address the concern that schools encourage people to go down the academic route and discourage the apprenticeship side.
Our schools can do more to engage with local businesses—and that is key, as local businesses have a wealth of experience and present a wealth of opportunities locally. Children can be encouraged, when choosing their options, to think about what opportunities there are locally. Providing young people with the right incentives and the right information about the choices they make is vital for their future and for the future of the UK’s economy.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
I am glad to be speaking here today, Mr Bailey, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on bringing forward the debate.
I wanted to speak in this debate because I had three years in Northern Ireland as vice-chair of the education committee—so a little bit of experience there—and I now chair the all-party parliamentary group on education here. I also worked for three years in the 1980s at Short Brothers, later Bombardier Aerospace, where I was definitely a square peg in a round hole. At university, I remember computer science coming at me for the first time as part of my business studies degree, and in those days—I am a little older than most here—it was about punching cards, stacking them into a machine and pressing the button that said “Run”. I think it worked only once. So the message I would really like to hear is that we need to teach and train everyone in these skills—they certainly passed me by.
I feel that, particularly in Northern Ireland, we have lost our way in education by concentrating too much on certain skills. Because we are devolved and in danger of devolving further into northern powerhouses, midlands machines and all sorts of other things, we must ensure that we all work together, helping each other throughout education, and do not end up concentrating on our little areas.
There are schemes for sharing the skills that are there, such as Catapult, and that is the sort of thing I would like to see as we all work together. I want education to prepare pupils for jobs, life and employment. The all-party group will be doing a survey and an inquiry into future skills, and I hope that all hon. Members here and their colleagues will get involved in helping us to explore what those skills are and how we work at the issue so that people leave school ready for a job.
When I was at Stormont working on education, various statistics came at me. One was that the Chinese produce 76,000 engineers a year. We have to stay better than them, and keep our entrepreneurship better than theirs too. I was also told that 80% of jobs now include IT, and when we went down to our excellent science park in Belfast, we discovered that there is a shortfall of some 30,000 people in Northern Ireland being trained in those skills. That fits with all the other figures. We need to get more people involved, and I think that our approach is wrong.
I will be a little local. In Northern Ireland, we have had Sinn Féin running our education system for more than a decade. It is trying to get rid of the grammar schools, squeezing them from every angle. Grammars are our one chance of getting people to perfect certain skills and certain angles, so we have had to work hard to get changes in so that they all work together. Sinn Féin has tried to get rid of that concentration on high-level skills, to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator. That is where we have lost our way.
We need to get science teaching into primary schools—Sinn Féin cut that and moved it away. It also cut the funding to Sentinus, one of the major bodies involved in making STEM interesting to pupils, and then it cut a lot of the funding to STEM. We are going in the opposite direction, but we have some fantastic teachers—in fact, most of our teachers are good. A teacher at one of my local schools, Creavery, won the award for the best primary school science teacher of the year. We must keep working so that everyone gets interested.
We also have to work on careers and make them interesting. A few years ago, I met someone from Northern Ireland who had gone to China and produced a business skills course, which he sold to the Chinese but not to us. The course teaches everything from sourcing raw materials all the way through to working on them and producing the end product. No one ever taught me that sort of skill at school—how to understand the whole business of trade and creation—and that is the sort of thing we have to get into the teaching. We have to make the area interesting.
I sometimes wonder whether we could not have one big web portal, into which someone would stick the skill they were interested in. Say they put in “Art”: it would lead them down to design and technology, to whether they were going to design pottery, paint paintings or do the interiors of houses or ships. Everything would open up. I have been to various air shows and seen the great big banks of screens about what industry is doing. That could all be on a web portal. Every single angle could be gone down and children and pupils could go, “Wow! That’s what I want to do”. That is what we should be doing. We should be lifting everyone’s education so that they really want to move into the fields of science and technology. It did not work for me.
Danny Kinahan
Thank you. But it could work for everyone. Some of us are art and some of us are history, but we can make things work for everyone. It all interlinks. If I have a message today, it is this: “Please promote and educate in STEM—all the sciences and technology—so that it really grips the students and pupils and makes them interested, so that they want to go out and work in those fields”.
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
The Minister has been asked to respond to an enormous number of points, so I ask the Front-Bench spokespeople to ensure that he is given adequate time to do so. I would also, of course, like to bring in the mover of the motion, Michelle Donelan, for a couple of minutes at the end to sum up.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this important debate. It has been informative, with many valuable contributions, and there are clear messages coming through. The hon. Lady talked about the need to tailor the curriculum to what business requires and, when looking at school curricula, it is important to consider what we are trying to achieve as the end product.
As a physics teacher, I have been long aware of the growing need for specific professions within the workplace. Engineers, scientists and computer scientists have become key to economic success in this ever more digital world. There is a massive skills gap, and we should be taking positive steps to address it. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about retaining the teachers we have and encouraging more people to take up a career in STEM teaching, and I agree; teachers are key to everything we are discussing this morning. If we cannot get teachers in, how can we possibly encourage our young people to take up these subjects? It is also important that we have an environment that is conducive to people moving into teaching. We need to look at what is happening in schools and the stresses and strains that have been put on teachers.
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) talked about working together to produce the best results, and that is important. We want a situation where our young people educated in engineering and science can travel not only throughout the UK but throughout the world. We are producing top-class engineers, but we are just not producing enough of them. We should be able to export these young people worldwide. He also mentioned grammar schools. I taught in a comprehensive school for most of my career, and I do not believe that grammar schools solve all the problems.
Schoolchildren’s awareness of careers in industry has been mentioned, and we need to be careful about some of the language we use. We talk about industry, but for many children that word conjures up images of boiler suits, oil and probably fairly manky toilet facilities. If we are trying to encourage our young people, we need to be careful when we loosely talk about the engineer coming round to fix our central heating boiler or our satellite TV. Important though those workers are, I am pretty sure that most of them do not have a degree in engineering.
Kevin Foster
The hon. Lady is making an interesting and at some points amusing speech. Does she agree that part of the issue is that we perceive engineering in this country as someone fixing a washing machine? In other parts of Europe, “engineer” is a title in itself, almost like having a knighthood.
Carol Monaghan
Absolutely. We of course have chartered engineer status, but that does not filter through to children when they are thinking about careers. The stereotypes are damaging. The hon. Member for Strangford talked about the high-end jobs we have in the UK, but how do we raise awareness? A few weeks ago, I visited Clyde Space, an engineering and manufacturing plant in an office block in the centre of Glasgow that manufacturers satellites. It has a lovely open-plan area with computers down one side. Lots of young people were sitting at them, chatting and working away. They were in jeans and some even had make-up on. It is a relaxed, nice environment, and they are all engineers. We need to change our perception of what an engineer is.
The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) talked about raising awareness of STEM careers at a much earlier age, and that is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) talked about the STEM outreach in his local area. Things like that start getting children ready for other possible careers.
The hon. Member for Chippenham mentioned the subjects included in the EBacc, but what is the purpose of the EBacc? Is it an attempt at producing a gold-standard qualification, or is it simply for league tables? I spoke to the Minister for Schools last week about the composition of the EBacc—we are becoming great friends across the Chamber—and I talked about the science pillar, which retains the traditional subjects. Although the rhetoric about STEM is positive, such things as the composition of the EBacc should be driven by economic factors, not just by outdated views of what a gold-standard education should be. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) talked about the importance of hands-on skills, problem solving and apprenticeships. Those are vital. Problem-solving skills developed at school can be used widely in society, and not just within an engineering situation.
The Scottish picture was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun. In response to him, I should say that my son is just about to embark on an engineering degree at university, so perhaps I was more persuasive. In Scotland, we have redesigned our curriculum not by making a list of the subjects we consider to be core but instead by starting at the end point: looking at what employers need and the skills our young people have to have. Our new curriculum requires children to study a broad general curriculum from age three. It must cover lots of curricular areas, including expressive arts, health and wellbeing, languages, maths, religious education, sciences, social studies and technologies. All those subjects must be covered to age 14, so children in Scotland are getting the exposure that many Members have talked about today. As young people approach their exams, they can choose which strands they wish to progress. Within the technologies curriculum, there are many different subjects—computing science, design and manufacture, design and technology, engineering and science, to name but a few—that allow them to specialise. The beauty of it is that all subject areas have equal status and the markers by which schools are judged encompass all curricular areas.
As our young people progress, they have far wider options in which they can choose to specialise. The hon. Member for South Antrim talked about his difficulties with some of those areas. Not everyone is born to be an engineer, but not everyone is born to be an expert in classics, either. Variety is what makes our society rich. We have a baccalaureate in Scotland, but it happens at a later stage. Students can do four different baccalaureates: languages; expressive arts; social sciences; and science, which includes design and manufacture and engineering science. Those qualifications at a late stage in secondary are meant to be cross-curricular and include a cross-curricular project.
In conclusion, I totally agree with the hon. Member for Chippenham and the point she raised about the importance of design and technology qualifications. We need to look at a curriculum that is driven by what industry requires, not by what politicians think is needed. We also need curricula that allow for personalisation and choice, so that young people can become experts in their areas of interest.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, I think for the first time. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on setting out her stall so well at the beginning of the debate. She reminded us that engineering and design and technology education are central to our future economic success and underlined the need for skills to match the requirements of our economy. She also talked interestingly about creating an “innovation-hungry economy”. I liked that phrase; it inspired and encouraged me, and that is what we want for young people, is it not? She also spoke with passion and knowledge about the new, improved design and technology GCSE, which I think everyone in the Chamber would commend. It is an exciting move forward with a lot of potential. She also argued that, because it is exciting and has rigour and clear value, it should be given EBacc status. I will come to that later.
The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) said that he had had words with the Minister about trying to elbow D and T into the EBacc. I can understand why the Minister has difficulties with that, but I will come to that later. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke as always with passion and reminded us that design and technology are even more important than Leicester City’s success this season. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) highlighted the need for better careers information, advice and guidance, which is something I very much agree with. She also pointed to her personal experience of her own design and technology GCSE and the way in which that helped to prepare her for a career as a marine surveyor.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) worked as an engineer and came out with the perceptive statement that the one-size-fits-all approach will not work in this area. That is at the heart of some of the difficulties that the Government are perhaps getting into with their EBacc approach. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) reminded us that a modern economy needs hands-on skills as well as academic skills. I think that is very perceptive. The design and technology curriculum is particularly good at developing practical skills, which he told us were necessary whether making a saucepan or HS2. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) drew on his great experience in Northern Ireland and again underlined the importance of practical skills and careers education, among other things.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) made a significant contribution to the debate by drawing on her experience as a physics teacher and underlined the fact that there is a massive skills gap that needs to be addressed. She drew attention to how the term “engineer” covers a wide range of disciplines. Frankly, we need the practical hands-on engineering skills of plumbers as well as the high-tech engineering skills of qualified chartered engineers. We need it all; that is why design and technology is so important in our curriculum. The hon. Lady concluded by emphasising the importance of the personalisation of learning, and I think she is correct. Learning that combines rigour and the interests of the learner as well as the destination of the economy is the very best sort of learning because that allows everybody to succeed.
If I glance back to 2010, the curriculum was in many ways in quite a good place. It was not perfect, but we had a highly personalised curriculum with a lot of rigour that was driving up performance and moving people forward. That did not mean it did not need to change, but there were a lot of strengths in that approach. I know that from my own experience in leading a sixth-form college at that time. We saw standards improving in local schools, often driven by curriculum innovation, so we saw the five A* to Cs rising, and a couple of years behind that we saw the five A* to Cs plus maths and English rising. Once someone has a sense of achievement and success, it drives aspiration not only for the youngsters in that community school, but for everybody around them. That is the spiral of success that we had in 2010. Hopefully, we can continue to move forward on that.
When the EBacc was introduced, the Education Committee, on which I served, raised concerns in a critical and challenging report. The concerns were around why a particular set of subjects were chosen. Why was ancient history more important than design and technology? Why was Latin more important than business studies? The evidence base was not clear. The examination of what the world of work needs and what the world of education should supply was not there. I think we would all agree that a core curriculum is necessary, but the Government knew without asking anybody what the answer was, and, when probed, came up with the thought that the facilitating subjects of the Russell Group universities were the set of subjects that should determine the EBacc’s central purpose. There is no logical reason why that should be so. Indeed, as somebody who has probably sent more students to Russell Group universities than anybody else here, I know that the Russell Group accept a wide range of subjects beyond those facilitating subjects.
To go down such a route is questionable. To extend the EBacc to 90% of students obviously constricts the timetable even more. Again, I know that from having done timetables in which a limited number of resources had to be managed. Concentrating resources on certain things means other things will not fit. So there are big challenges. I recently spoke to the leader of one of the highest performing multi-academy trusts. He said that they might not go down that road. He pointed to the former Labour Government’s diploma activities as something else that they did not follow because, from their views on what is in the best interests of young people, it does not work, so there is a challenge there.
The Edge Foundation’s submission to the EBacc consultation concluded:
“Imposing an arbitrary set of qualifications on students is not supported by a solid evidence base. The 90% EBacc target is neither necessary nor desirable. It will harm, not help, large numbers of students, reduce the uptake of technical and creative subjects and limit choices open to students and their parents. It could exacerbate the country's growing skills gap, because fewer students will achieve passes in technical and creative subjects linked to the needs of the economy.”
Let us hope that that is wrong, but it is a clarion call from the organisation. The Baker Dearing Educational Trust has been very much behind the movement towards greater skills development and so on.
The Labour party wants to see a broad and balanced curriculum. We welcome the steps towards measuring the progress that children make on progress 8 and attainment 8, because a broader range of subjects are provided. It is important that young people have a core knowledge of the curriculum, including English, maths and sciences. It is all well and good thinking about D and T and the EBacc, but the thing that undermines that the most is not having enough qualified teachers to teach it. Many contributions today have drawn attention to that. The key challenge is to ensure there are enough teachers to teach design and technology, yet at the moment the Government are not getting anywhere near the target they need to achieve this, with just 41% of the target being met, and they are also missing their targets in science and computing.
The fall in the numbers of students taking design and technology is a concern too, given the skills shortages in the economy. Design and technology and engineering are important for delivering the productive high-tech economy that we need to compete in an increasingly globalised world. Forecasts suggest that the UK will need more than a million new engineers and technicians in the next five years. The Conservative Government are failing to deliver the pipeline of talent that we require. It would be a challenge for anybody, so we all need to support the Government in meeting the challenge, but we need to check whether this direction is the right way to meet it.
From manufacturers and construction firms to digital industries and the CBI, businesses in Britain are increasingly warning about the skills shortages that our country is grappling with. I hope the Minister has time to answer the many questions that have been raised in the debate. He is courteous and able and always does his best in that regard.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey; I think it is the first time I have done so. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this important debate during British science week. I pay tribute to her for her work on these issues on the Education Committee and elsewhere. I also congratulate her on the powerful and compelling speech that introduced the debate.
Science, technology, engineering and maths are vital subjects in our modern economy. Our manifesto included a commitment to make this country the best place in the world to study maths and STEM subjects in primary, secondary and further education. There is widespread demand for employees with an in-depth knowledge of STEM subjects, and those working in science and technology careers are paid, on average, 19% more than in other professions. Despite those attractive employment prospects, research from organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry shows that companies still have difficulties in recruiting people with technical and professional STEM backgrounds and qualifications.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) referred to the importance of careers advice. The Government have established the Careers & Enterprise Company, and we are also taking steps to improve the quality of careers advice through the development of a new careers strategy that will set out our vision for 2020 and the clear lines of accountability, through Ofsted and the new destination measures, for the quality of careers advice in schools.
We have recognised the importance of STEM subjects to young people’s life chances, and we accept the plea of the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) that we promote science and technology subjects at school. Our ambitious programme of reform is addressing the historical underperformance in STEM education. Our reforms to the curriculum and to qualifications mean that standards in public qualifications will match the expectations of the best education systems in the world.
We are also reforming vocational qualifications to introduce a small number of technical and professional routes, which will support students’ progress from school into employment. Those routes will be valued by employers to ensure that more students progress into higher-level technical occupations in areas such as engineering. As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) said, high-quality teaching is also essential to tackling the skills shortages, which is why the Government support schools to recruit top graduates into teaching.
Last year, the Prime Minister announced an additional package worth £67 million to recruit and train up to 17,500 maths and physics teachers. The Government run scholarships and offer bursaries to encourage high-quality maths and physics graduates to train as teachers. We also support schools and existing STEM teachers to improve the quality of teaching through Government-funded programmes such as maths hubs and the network of science learning partnerships.
More than 22,000 more young people are taking A-levels in STEM subjects this year compared with 2010, and the number of STEM apprenticeships is increasing. The percentage of apprentices starting in STEM-sector-related subject areas has increased by 64% since 2010, to more than 90,000. Over the same period, the number of women starting STEM-related apprenticeships has more than doubled to 8,000, and the number starting apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing technologies has more than trebled to 5,100.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) emphasised the importance of the apprenticeship programme. We are committed to reaching 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020, an ambition that we are helping to fund to the tune of £2.5 billion with the apprenticeship levy. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood highlighted the example of 12 higher-level apprenticeships at the BAE Systems site in Rochester.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) mentioned schools actively discouraging students from looking into the possibility of becoming an apprentice. The Education Act 2011, introduced by the coalition Government, says that schools should secure independent careers advice, and adds explicitly that that must include information on apprenticeships.
Another issue that the Government are tackling is the gender gap in STEM A-levels and careers. We should celebrate the fact that 12,000 more girls entered mathematics and science at A-level in 2015 than in 2010, but total entries in maths and science were still 36% higher for boys than for girls. The Secretary of State recently announced an ambition to tackle that unjustifiable gender gap by increasing the proportion of girls entering maths and science A-levels by 20% by 2020. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham referred to the STEMNET programme. There are now 32,000 STEM ambassador volunteers throughout the country who support their local schools with STEM careers advice, and 40% of them are female—a point also made by the hon. Member for Strangford.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham welcomed the reforms made to the design and technology curriculum and associated qualifications. She is right that design and technology is a valuable subject that prepares young people for further technical study, and it remains compulsory in school from key stage 1 to key stage 3—from ages five to 14. The content of the previous design and technology qualifications did not include the knowledge and skills sought by leading engineering employers, so, as my hon. Friend said, we have worked closely with key organisations in the sector—including the Design and Technology Association, the James Dyson Foundation and the Royal Academy of Engineering —to align the qualification with high-tech industry practice. Industry leaders have been very supportive of our reforms.
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe criticised some of our approaches to design and technology. Under the last Labour Government, between 2007-08 and 2010, the numbers entering design and technology GCSE fell from 311,000 to 238,000. I am optimistic that our reforms to the content of the design and technology GCSE and A-level will result in a rise in the number of students who opt to study them. The decline started before we introduced the EBacc or the Progress 8 measure.
We continue to support design and technology teacher recruitment through bursaries of up to £12,000 and marketing campaigns that feature design and technology. Subject knowledge enhancement courses are available for candidates who need to refresh or boost their subject knowledge. We also provide a specific webpage on the “Get Into Teaching” website for potential design and technology trainee teachers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham expressed concerns about the impact of the recently introduced accountability measures—such as the EBacc and the Progress 8 measure—on the take-up of design and technology. I share her concern at the declining numbers that I just highlighted. In my view, that decline reflects the declining quality and status of the previous qualification. As I said, I am optimistic that we will see the numbers rise.
The EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs is an important performance measure and the Government are determined that every child should leave school fully literate and fluent in maths, with an understanding of the history and geography of the world they inhabit, its workings as revealed by the findings of science, and a grasp of a language other than their own. Biology, chemistry, physics, computer science—there is nothing old-fashioned in emphasising the importance of those subjects, which was the criticism levelled at us by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan).
I have every hope that the combination of the revised design and technology qualifications and our focus on attracting new specialist teachers will restore the subject’s focus. To give my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham time to respond, I shall finish by saying that I am enormously grateful for her support for this agenda. She has raised some important issues, and I hope she is happy with the steps that the Government are taking to address them. Over the course of the Parliament, we will continue to build on the progress we have made on this issue.
Michelle Donelan
I thank all colleagues who participated in the debate. Together, we have stressed the importance of promoting the STEM sector and combatting the stereotypical image that has arisen so that we can tackle the skills gap. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) summed it up when she said that we need to excite people about the industry. Today’s discussion highlighted the fact that the focus needs to be on the T and E of STEM, not just on the S and M.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) talked about the need for practical skills and hands-on ability. I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who said that education should be led by industry, not by politicians. That sums up the progress that we need to make in the sector. I am impressed that I managed to inspire the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin).
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his response. I congratulate him on his work in the sector. It is easy to overlook the fact that he is one of the people who dramatically changed the design and technology course we have been discussing, so he understands its value and its long-term potential for progress. I agree with him about the importance of the academic rigour and core focus of the EBacc and stress that that is exactly why we need design and technology to be part of it. It is very much an academic subject, and we can send out that message to students and teachers throughout the country. I urge the Government to listen to businesses and to teachers and help to give students the best shot at life by looking again at making design and technology part of the EBacc.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered engineering skills and design and technology education.