British politician Jo Johnson, brother to the former prime minister Boris Johnson, has criticised the current state of Britain's design and technology education.
Speaking at the launch of the Design Council's report A Blueprint for Renewal: Design and Technology Education, Johnson outlined his frustrations and called for changes to the country's education system.
Secondary school system is "totally constipated"
"We have a big problem," Johnson said. "And that problem is a totally constipated secondary school system at the moment, which has been bunged up by reforms that tried to take our curriculum back to the 1950s."
"This government has unfortunately stuck our secondary education system in a mindset that thinks the way we did things in the 1950s is the way we need to do things in [...] the 21st century."
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"What is really frustrating me at the moment is that, although design is one of Britain's great strengths [...], I do feel that we're fundamentally shortchanging ourselves as a country in terms of exploiting the huge potential we have to do even better than we do already."
Citing reforms that were introduced in 2010 and further developed in 2017, Johnson continued, "we have a curriculum at the moment [...] that is completely outdated in terms of its excessive emphasis on a very narrow range of ...