Factors influencing attitudes to technology in schools

he conventional wisdom of this period in regard to national prosperity and education for a technological society is to be found in the i945 report of the Percy Committee on Higher Technological Education. Incorporated in the one text are the ideas that Britain would be short of technologists for industry; that Universities should emphasize the science aspect and technical colleges the art aspect of technological education but that existing part-time courses for the Higher National Certificate were wholly inadequate in respect of their provision in the fundamental sciences and that in any case industry required a new type of high level technologist. Of the 1500 trained engineers which the Committee expected the technical colleges to produce it was anticipated that about I50 would work for external degrees of the University of London, iooo would train as in the past while the remaining 350 would undergo courses to produce the new type of technologist. They would require continuous full-time study over substantial periods which would be interwoven with planned courses of works practice. Such courses' 'should be directed to the development to the highest level of the teaching of the art of technology, based on sufficient scientific foundation. These courses should have a status in no way inferior to the University type of course . . .' but they should be awarded a diploma. 'Even in such a well-established technology as engineering what is chiefly required of Technical Colleges is adaptability to changing techniques and to new combinations of techniques.' The history of subsequent events has been well documented.2 By 1955 it had been decided to create the National Council for Technological Awards and the I956 white paper on Technical Educations heralded a four-tier system of technical colleges with the Colleges of Advanced Technology at the apex. The Diploma in Technology was given charter status and the idea of sandwich courses promoted. The Robbins Committee accepted that both the Diploma and Colleges '37