Re-engineering the curriculum: the missing 'E' in STEM
With an estimated shortfall of over 173,000 workers in the STEM sector – an average of 10 unfilled roles per business in the UK – we need to ensure young people have access to good quality STEM education and opportunities to explore what a career in engineering could be.
That is why our Engineering Kids’ Futures report, which is backed by more than 170 leaders from industry and academia, recommends that as part of the government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review, the National Curriculum be updated to include engineering from an earlier age.
Current curriculum failing to prepare young people for STEM careers
With rapidly changing technology, employers are increasingly looking for an agile and adaptive workforce to remain innovative and competitive. In our 2023 skills survey, two in three engineering employers stated that the UK education system does not prepare graduates well for industry – falling substantially behind other nations.
This is because the current curriculum doesn’t prepare young people for their future careers, with schools encouraged to focus on achieving high exam results, which their funding is linked to, rather than expanding and developing students with the right skills for being part of the workforce.
Without making changes to both the EBacc and national curriculum, we will be failing students, and the skills gap in crucial engineering and technology sectors will continue to grow.
Finding the missing ‘E’ in STEM
We need to ensure that engineering is given the prominence it needs in the national curriculum to develop the skilled engineers who will drive future growth and develop solutions to global challenges. Other than a small handful of mentions, engineering currently does not appear in the national curriculum, with nothing directly naming or highlighting the things that children are learning in maths, science or design and technology as engineering.
Part of the problem is that the current curriculum is too theory-heavy, and the current STEM curriculum is too focused towards science and maths, missing the practical engineering and technology aspects.
More needs to be done to ensure curriculum subjects are being taught in a way that empathises linkages, purpose, and application to the world we live in. Hands-on experiences and understanding of engineering as a profession start too late to have any impact. To truly achieve more interest in practical subjects, we need to start much earlier – from primary school age. Without this, we risk creating barriers and holding back young people from exploring their future career options.
Spreading opportunity beyond the classroom
The benefits of this work extend far beyond the classroom. Adding more focus on the misunderstood disciplines like engineering, where we know there is a perception problem, will help young people from all backgrounds better understand how STEM can be applied, increase their career aspirations, and develop other skills such as creativity and problem-solving.
That is why it’s important that young people from all backgrounds right across the UK have access to STEM learning and opportunities. Recent Engineering UK stats reveal that just a third of young people (aged 13 to 19) in lower-income households know what subjects they would need to become an engineer, compared to over half of young people in higher-income households. This is due to many STEM activities being extra-curricular and relying on additional funding to run STEM outreach activities as they can be costly and time-consuming for schools to deliver.
By embedding engineering into the national curriculum, the government can ensure that all children learn these crucial skills for future careers.
Supporting teachers
Another crucial part of the challenge is the severe and growing gap in STEM teacher shortages. A broad and enriching curriculum cannot be taught if we do not have the right teachers in post, and the latest figures show that recruitment and retention is going in the wrong direction – with 1,600 vacancies, compared to 1,300 a year ago.
Money incentives are only one piece of the puzzle, and more needs to be done to attract and retain teachers in the profession, such as valuable continuing professional development training, which is industry-led and up-to-date, and looking at teaching hours and classroom behaviour.
We also recommend the government actively promote and signpost an engineering package of training aligned with the Initial Teacher Training, as also recommended in our Engineering Kids’ Futures report. This would help STEM teachers – particularly at primary level, where they are not currently offered training in STEM subjects.
Time to re-engineer the curriculum
The Curriculum and Assessment Review is a crucial opportunity to re-engineer the curriculum to better prepare young people for the demands of the modern workplace and close the engineering and technology skills gap.
However, the IET and other engineering institutions and organisations are concerned by the lack of STEM expertise in the review panel’s membership and have written to the Secretary of State to encourage her to ensure that STEM education is given careful and informed consideration as part of the review.
We need to tackle the engineering skills shortage once and for all. The only way we can do this is by ensuring STEM subjects are given the prominence they deserve in the curriculum, including the currently missing ‘E’.
Read the Engineering Kids’ Futures report here.
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