News - NEF Says Cameron’s Maths Task Force is Too Little, Too Early

Vocational education think-tank, the New Engineering Foundation (NEF) today welcomed David Cameron's attempts to address Britain's poor numeracy skills, but warned that the measures are "too little, too early", mistakenly focussing on school-age children rather than students in Further Education (FE).

NEF Chief Executive, Prof Sa'ad Medhat said:

"Today's weather has brought the capital to a standstill. In fact, David Cameron has had to cancel his trip to the academy where he was due to speak about these proposals. This just serves to highlight the fact that we need to address the skills gap NOW. Proposals aimed at schools are just too little, too early in the education system. What we need is to focus on the students in FE colleges, to address a skills shortage that is crippling Britain right now."

Sa'ad Medhat also pointed out that the focus of the initiative is too narrow, as there is a shortage of technician level skills across the science, technology, engineering and maths sector. This was highlighted by the 2008 National Employers Skills Survey, which showed that around 40,000 vacancies had been left unfilled due to skills shortages.

"Unemployment may be rising, but in this crucially important sector there are still jobs to be filled. As we can see today, our infrastructure is crying out for technically skilled individuals, across a range of disciplines. Telecoms systems are down, transport networks can't cope. To meet this demand we must simplify and strengthen FE funding streams, improve professional development for FE lecturers (through schemes such as the ongoing NEF Industrial Fellowships) and improve college-business engagement to help address supply and demand issues (through schemes such as the 2009 NEF Knowledge and Technology Exchange Nodes). We need to do this now - we can't sit around waiting for school children to grow up."

___ENDS- 2 Feb 09___

For further information:

Kate Taylor

Communications

New Engineering Foundation

Notes for editors:

1. The New Engineering Foundation (NEF) was established in 2004 as a grant awarding charity and a think-tank that supports the development of Vocational Education in science, engineering and technology through providing policy advice and advocacy, undertaking and commissioning research studies and impact analyses, and developing and delivering educational programmes and resources.
   
   
2. The NEF's central recommendation is the creation of a vocationally-focussed National Applied Science Diploma that will provide an industrially recognised qualification which has, embedded in its curriculum skills that count further towards employability (such as communication, time-management and leadership) and which will lead to a blossoming in the number of Science Technicians.
   
   
3. The Industrial Fellowship Scheme has been running since 2005 with support from teh Gatsby Charitable Foundation, in that time over 300 lecturers have taken part, from over 110 Further Education Colleges nationwide, benefiting over 114,000 students. Participating companies are estimated to have contributed £2.3 million in kind.
   
   
4. The Knowledge and Technology Exchange Node projects were launched in September 2008, with support from teh Gatsby Charitable Foundation. The aim of the projects is to enable FE Colleges to play a more comprehensive role in the provision of knowledge and technology transfer/exchange solutions with business and industry, strengthening economic development at local, regional and sector levels. 22 proposals were received in October 2008 from 20 FE Colleges. 11 proposals have been successful, ensuring coverage in 8 of the 9 Regional Development areas.
   
   
5. "Preparing for The Future: applied and vocational science provision at an intermediate level in Further Education colleges" was published by the NEF on 23 October 2008 and is available at:

http://www.neweng.org.uk/uploads/Reports/PreparingfortheFutureWeb.pdf