Pleas to educate heard around the world

From elementary through high school, career days and hands-on activities are happening in hopes of stirring the interest that a career in manufacturing and engineering is cool. Activities and events are design to show students that everything we use is designed and manufactured by someone, somewhere, and how choosing a career in this field can be rewarding is really their purpose – and a good one with which I agree.

In the school district my children attend, the 2014-2015 academic year will see a new concept initiated with small learning communities – dens – that focus on  arts, media & design; human & public services; health & wellness; and E2 (engineering & entrepreneurship). The purpose, according to our academic leaders, is to inspire children so they can learn in the manner that interests them most. We’ll see how it goes, as this is all new, and I, as a parent, just want to make sure that my children are ready when they head off to college.

So, if we make this push in the K-12 years, are we fulfilling it as our children head on to college? And, who are those students attending colleges and universities and are we enabling that talent to stay and contribute to the manufacturing sector? The reason I bring this up is last week I read a piece by James Dyson, a British inventor, industrial designer, and founder of the Dyson company. He is angered that students who attend U.K. universities but are not citizens end up having to leave the country within 4 months of graduating, leaving engineering jobs in the U.K. unfilled. In addition, he adds that, “We take their money and we give them our knowledge, but then we kick them out, dispatching newly trained engineers to foreign shores. Our experts are training the competition.”

Training the competition is not good.

Training the next generation of workers for work in our own back yard should be priority number one, and we’ll see if the “den” idea works and catches on.

Click here to read Dyson’s editorial.