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Yet Arguably The Most Pressing Concern With Specific Regards To The Design ...


Yet arguably the most pressing concern with specific regards to the design and technology curriculum is the way in which it is still largely seen as a vocational subject by policy makers and education specialists in all parts of the United Kingdom. This is in direct contrast to the education policies of the great majority of European Union member states that see design and technology as much more valuable than a mere vocational subject where it is made into an essential subject that is state funded and mandatory from an early age. As a result, there is the blurring of the traditional boundaries between ‘academic' and ‘vocational' learning in, for example, Germany that has still yet to materialise in Scotland (Lane, 1996). This is bound to affect the design and technology curriculum in the most fundamental ways. Not only with less time will be given to the study of design and technology in comparison to for example English and mathematics, but there will also be a diminishing likelihood of the subject becoming compulsory in the primary sector, which is a prerequisite in terms of making the acquisition of digital and technological knowledge a fundamental part of the educational tapestry in Scotland. The issue is even further complicated when one takes into account the political dimension of curriculum and education reform, which is an ever present feature concerning any discussion of governmental educational policy in the UK. After all, education is, in essence, a political activity, and is at the whim of the political expediency of the partybased electoral system in every part of Britain (Kelly, 1989). The political sphere is, therefore, key with regards to deciding which subjects are to be given statutory support and which subjects will, conversely, remain on the fringes of the national curriculum. For as long as the political establishment favours traditionalist subjects over innovative subjects, design and technology is likely to remain lagging behind English, science and mathematics. Richard Kembell sees this political element as a great cause for concern within the broader debate about the modernisation of key skills and the knowledge economy in the contemporary era.
This current political twist is an illustration of the challenge raised by the emergence of design and technology. The attempt to label subjects as vocational or otherwise is a tacit admission of the rightness of ‘subjects' as organising features of the curriculum. Yet the new aims imply the need to rethink the old certainties of a subjectbased curriculum (Kembell, 2004:55).

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