In the final part of a four-part series, UK Construction Online’s Matt Brown speaks to Alison Watson, Managing Director and founder of Class Of Your Own Limited – creators of the Design Engineer Construct! (DEC!) programme.
Design Engineer Construct! is an accredited learning programme for secondary-school age students developed to create and inspire the next generation of Built Environment professionals. Through a project-based approach, DEC! applies pure academic subjects to the latest construction industry practices. The result is young people with real-world practical experience and employability skills.
In part IV, Alison the government’s response to the skills shortage, the construction industry’s response to the DEC! programme and what we can expect to see in the future.
Is the government being proactive enough in dealing with the skill shortage?
No because, unfortunately, the government only knows what the government knows.
We are so far behind other countries in terms of acknowledging skills. Around the same time as the CBI launched their latest Skills Report last February, some eminent professor from Cambridge, who advises the government on education, said it was preposterous to think that any 16 year old can be work-ready when they leave school. I thought to myself, “These guys should get themselves into a DEC! school – the kids are so work ready.” And they’re being recruited as a direct result of studying DEC!
Take A star DEC! student, Bradley Lees from St Ambrose Barlow RC High School. He was destined for university, but at 16 years old decided to take a technical apprenticeship with Mott MacDonald. His 18 year old work colleagues asked him how come he knew so much ‘stuff’ about the built environment. Bradley had been using Autodesk Revit to work on his buildings and structures for three years, so he was already confident in the digital environment. The ones who came with A levels had no practical application whatsoever. Bradley is a real role model for other kids, but the government is so blinkered with the English Baccalaureate, that kids don’t need creative or technical subjects. I know maths teachers who say they are simply teaching kids to how to pass an exam. There’s no skill involved; a maths exam factory.
I’m genuinely hopeful that Skills Minister Nick Bowles will visit a DEC! school and I think it will be a massive eye opener for him. It’s not just about DEC!, it’s the fact that our teachers are empowered by their industry connections and are showing their students a great way to develop valuable new skills and apply all the STEM subjects.
What kind of support does DEC! receive from the construction industry?
I’m a firm believer that, despite all the STEM and construction ambassadors who go around the country giving careers talks to kids, we can do so much more collectively as an industry to impact their future careers.
There’s now significant support for DEC! in industry, and it all started back in 2013 when Keith Howells, Chairman of Mott MacDonald, agreed to support the first Adopt A School scheme. Some of the UK’s most respected organisations have made DEC! a key part of their social responsibility strategies, and more are coming on board all the time.
I wish it would happen quicker and more often, especially given the number of people who talk about it, but I’m patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and everyone knows I don’t agree with short-termism in our industry when it comes to investment in education and skills. I hope that the recent apprenticeship developments will see companies taking a longer view and looking to schools to develop young talent in the way that other sectors do.
What else does the future hold for Class of Your Own / DEC! ?
There are still loads of things that I want to do. If you imagine a wheel, DEC! is the core subject; the hub in the middle, and I’m developing other specialist programmes that will give DEC! students a chance to study a small project in a discipline that they really enjoy – the spokes so to speak. It will take their knowledge that little bit further because they are interested in it and can see their career path going down a favoured route.
An ambition is to develop a true DEC! teacher training programme and I’m finally talking to academic colleagues to do just that. We’ve had too many enquiries from new and existing teachers who want to teach DEC! to ignore it. I want DEC! teachers to be among the best teachers in the world, whose students remember them as the most inspiring teachers in their schools. For the past year, I’ve been working with some fantastic people, many of them very well known in industry and academic circles, to pull together an extraordinary programme of support. I’m hoping this major collaboration will give built environment education the respect is so desperately needs, bringing a relatively swift solution to the dreadful skills shortage we have.
And when I’m not busy with that, I’m quietly working behind the scenes with some very cool, like-minded people developing a new project to ensure that every child can experience what it’s like to work in our fantastic industry. I’ve been excited about projects before, but this one keeps me awake at night. Just as when I started writing DEC!, the people who matter most are the children who will learn from it, and as such, they are once more my critics. The thought of being accountable to a couple of thousand teenagers…
I cannot wait.
To read part I of this interview, click here
To read part II, click here
To read part III, click here
If you would like to read more articles like this then please click here
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