The Future of Design Education

We believe that it is time to evolve design qualifications in schools, as part of an improved and purposeful design curriculum that would be a global benchmark for design education.

Based on work with schools and a variety of stakeholders, we are proposing an updated design curriculum that centres on themes such as the circular economy, design thinking, systems thinking, creativity and innovation, and includes a strong body of responsibility content, which initially we coined “sustainability”. The practices of design and its associated human capabilities are known to encourage new ways of thinking, drive collaboration, improve the lives of users, and support more informed and responsible design solutions.

Design and Technology in its current form is under threat. The downward trend in student uptake, resourcing and recruitment challenges, changes to the design and engineering sectors and higher education programmes, combined with a shared community belief that the current curriculum could do much more to meet learner needs, through more relevant knowledge and expertise that help learners progress into flexible and socially responsible future careers, means that school education must act now.

We have completed extensive research to identify the needs of D&T teachers, departments and schools as a whole. A temperature check in January told us that around half of the 2,200 secondary school teachers and leaders asked, believe that modernising the subject will benefit the wider school curriculum.The same proportion also supported both the move for design education to address global challenges like climate change, and to equip learners with the skills they will need in future workforces.

When it comes to teaching young people about a more responsible way of designing and shaping the world around them, including high profile current challenges such as climate change, it is clear that action cannot come quick enough to meet the urgent calls for change from both students and teachers in the UK and Internationally. When considered alongside the continuous decline of student uptake, the collective call for action could not be more timely.

By encouraging contributions from the wider D&T community, we hope that it would be possible to see students studying a new repurposed suite of design qualification by as early as 2027.

Design and Technology has provided decades of valuable skills to young people, but with the current trajectory in student uptake, its future is uncertain.

As a subject, D&T feels perfectly placed to empower young people to become the creative problem solvers of the future, to realise through practical learning not only about responsible design practice but how to do something practical with it through positive and sustainable change in their chosen industries.

The opportunities this curriculum proposal recommends involves a natural evolution that continues to value students learning and ‘making’ with their hands, and combines this with the opportunity for digital and responsibly focused approaches in which learners are challenged to design solutions that go beyond only the creation of new products to address key global issues. Given the progression being realised in HE and industry in this area, this change will help to ensure what is being learnt in the classroom sequences a pathway through each key stage that would help students realise careers as designers and engineers in the future.

By combining core aspects of the existing D&T content with new accessible and inclusive areas for teaching and learning, the ambition is to realise a new approach to design education that supports broader engagement from students and schools, but doesn't result in additional burden to the subject and its existing teachers.

We believe and hold aspirations that this refocus of design education in schools will attract more students to such a vital subject and importantly, help to address issues like the current gender imbalance, through the development of accessible and inclusive content - something that is already being realised and championed in a variety of HE courses.

We want the specific details of the qualifications to be developed in the coming months with all awarding organisations contributing to the future of the subject, via a substantial consultation process that will encourage more educators, learners, policymakers, industry leaders and leading organisations in the sector to engage and participate.

We have already speculated that content could include the opportunity for students to develop solutions to real world problems drawn from the thematic areas of the Sustainable Development Goals, that can be both digital (including using computer aided designs, VR or AR, simulations, apps and services) and physical (engineered functional prototypes, products and proof of concept models). This wider opportunity to design and make is seen by industry stakeholders as key to improving the opportunities for creative students to remain interested in the subject, and take a qualification as part of their education journey, and we want to bring this forward as a proposal to be challenged and developed.

By reversing the current decline in student uptake in design qualifications, we hope that this proposal will ultimately offer much-needed security to D&T teachers across the UK who in many centres are seeing a drastic change in class sizes and subject popularity. The skills and passion of D&T teachers will remain at the centre of a subject, that the D&T community has repeatedly called for an update to meet the needs of students entering the workforce in the next 15+ years.

We believe that by triggering this call to action, it will provide a much needed opportunity for schools to focus on their D&T departments. A subject supported by a strong and future proof epistemology that can address some of the challenges being faced by current D&T teachers which is encouraging some to move away from the subject, we hope will begin attracting new and talented teachers to the field and support a growth in the subject nationally. 

In addition to our work with leading organisations in design, sustainability and manufacturing, across industry and higher education, we have consulted with a range of school teachers and leaders through expert advisory group workshops and both qualitative and quantitative research.

Every school and trust experiences D&T differently, and we have looked closely at those in which D&T is struggling and where it is thriving. These learnings have helped us to capture solutions that are realistic yet ambitious.

Pearson’s initial consultations followed the release of the EPI report A spotlight on Design and Technology study in England: trends in subject take up and the teacher workforce, which first outlined the sharp decline in the uptake of Design and Technology in English schools.

Since then, Pearson has and continues to work with D&T teachers, complimented by learners, leading global organisations and industry leaders, educators in HE and those involved in leading policy change for education in the UK, to present a combined vision for the future of Design Education. Our collaborative approach has ensured that everyone who has wanted to, has had a role in the discussions. Anyone who has yet to be involved, we encourage to join and be part of the solution.

To date we have worked with the likes of IDEO, The Royal Academy of Engineering, RSA, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Design Council, Future Foundations, NAEE, Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK), Google, Microsoft, Lets Go Zero, Global Action Plan and the NSEAD, as organisations D&T teachers will recognise, but also practising designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, current and ex-teachers and those who have been involved with design and technology education for the past 20 years and more.

We are passionate about working together to create a design curriculum that is fit for the future.

We are working with a large number of organisations with the shared ambition to raise the status of design education in schools.

Pearson’s proposed future-focused approach to a design curriculum would mean that the workers of tomorrow would not only meet the needs of changing employment opportunities but would also be part of defining them; creating new generations of innovators equipped to share their transferable skills and knowledge in any industry.

Our proposed approach reflects the collective desire of teachers and education for a broad range of pathways to remain available to students, from general qualifications including GCSEs and A Levels, to T-Levels and vocational qualifications including BTECs and apprenticeships - something that we remain equally focused to ensure are future proof and provide students with choice.

Absolutely not.

The proposed design curriculum, which utilises the expertise of cross-sector organisations from design and engineering, would support a natural transition to a more responsible approach, which research has indicated to us could solve some of the problems D&T teachers told us where impacting their ability to deliver an ambitious design curriculum. This would represent a shift from its current focus - the creation of existing consumer ‘products’ that would eventually end up in landfill, likely to become obsolete, or are frequently replaced over time due to changes in trends (a linear model of consumption) - to one where learners are challenged to design solutions that last, that prioritise the social and environmental impact they could have, that the student decides they want to realise in a physical or digital prototype. Some of these threads of content exist in D&T currently, but by celebrating greater innovation in materials and processes, enhancing a circular economy focus, design would help prepare students for a different way of consuming, problem solving and shaping the world around them, that ultimately will improve their prospects in their future careers.

Design and systems thinking as practices prioritise creativity and innovation and offer solutions through the physical prototyping of products and spaces, but also through the digital design, with a deeply rooted focus on empathy, users needs, and a bias to action. We have seen first hand how future focused degree courses encourage designed and engineered solutions to be realised through a much wider range of outcomes, from simulation to writing new policy, as well as physical products and concept models. Impactful design in industry is not only possible through making a high quality final product, and in this way, secondary education needs to reflect this and provide those opportunities to students to realise their creativity, and be rewarded with qualifications that encourage creative solutions. We believe that by representing both digital and physical design equally, students will have the opportunity to be more innovative in what they create and how they solve problems, and the barriers to design for many students will be removed.

Over the next few months, those who have helped to shape and create this proposed approach to date will be sharing their insights and contributions, to showcase how we have arrived at a proposal that is a natural iteration for the subject of design, that can be positively implemented in UK schools. Everyone involved, from educators, learners, organisations, industry leaders, policy makers and subject associations, are discussing why change is needed, and through collaboration, we believe this can bring together solutions that work for teachers, school leaders and students.

These changes cannot be successfully led by one person or organisation, which is why Pearson continues to seek the engagement and involvement of educators, learners, organisations, industry leaders and policymakers in addressing and responding to this carefully built proposal.

If you are involved in design engineering or sustainable education, you have a part to play in shaping this proposal. To find out how to take part, please visit go.pearson.com/thefutureofdesign and register your interest today. You can also follow Pearson on Twitter @PearsonSchools and search #newdesigncurriculum for ongoing updates.