Why design and technology education needs a shake up
Why design and technology education needs a shake up
https://www.creativebloq.com/design/why-design-and-technology-education-needs-a-shake-up
Publish Date: 2026-06-24 06:00:00
Source Domain: www.creativebloq.com
Think back to your school days. I have two questions for you. Firstly, how was creativity promoted in your school? Was it valued and promoted on a par with academic subjects, or was it viewed as a ‘nice to have’ entity, a kind of release from some of the ‘more serious work’?
My second question is: when you were studying a range of subjects at school (for GCSE, for example), what effort did the teachers make to explain why you were learning the content presented to you and how it might be useful to you in life and work thereafter?
I host a podcast where I talk with professionals across a range of creative sectors (Designed for Life – shamelessly promoted). So many have told me they loved design and technology at school but only realised late (sometimes at university) that they could make a living from designing, solving ‘real-world’ problems, modelling and prototyping, and thinking creatively. Activities they had, up until the moment of revelation, thought were an interesting pastime, a hobby perhaps, but no more.
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Yet when you take design, engineering and manufacturing together, these sectors contribute a conservative £530 million to UK GDP and employ somewhere between 1:4 and 1:5 of the UK working population. I think you will agree that these figures make them more than an interesting pastime, something to fill the quiet hours; they make design, engineering and manufacturing a mainstay of the UK economy.
The decline of D&T
(Image credit: D&T Association)
So why, in recent years, have we seen the decline of design and technology education in our schools nationally? Some figures here might help: In 2009, the subject saw almost 306,000 GCSE entries nationally; last year, this figure was 79,000.
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In 2009, the subject had just over 15,500 trained D&T teachers in service in schools; we (The Design & Technology Association) currently estimate this number to be around 6,300.
Given this…
