A new scheme from the James Dyson Foundation hopes to inject passion into design and technology teaching
It's one of the biggest "Cinderella" subjects on the curriculum – but could design and technology be about to get the makeover its advocates say it urgently deserves? Under a new initiative, to be launched in September, the country's best DT teachers are to be given passports to the frontline of British industry and then encouraged to feed back their experience to other DT teachers at regional workshops
It's all part of the billionaire inventor James Dyson's attempt to move in where others have failed and provide what he argues is a much-needed boost to a subject that's had bad PR stretching back decades.
Under the initiative – which will establish a network of "DT ambassadors" – the James Dyson Foundation will spend £100,000 on recruiting outstanding DT teachers, who will be invited to spend days away from the classroom to go into businesses to see how their subject translates into providing core skills within different industries.
Dyson says he is extremely concerned about the declining number of pupils studying DT. "China has compulsory technology lessons, and I think we could learn from that," he says. "DT inspires young people to go into industry as designers, but also, it inspires creativity and – perhaps most importantly – encourages them to work out their own answers to problems. It gives them vital life skills, whether they go on to become engineers or not – and we downgrade it at our peril. DT can come across as dry if it doesn't have enthusiastic teachers with direct experience of how it's used in the workplace. I want to stimulate, inform and inspire DT teachers, who will go on to enthuse others."
Richard Green, chief executive of the Design and Technology Association, which is working with the James Dyson Foundation on the scheme, says the big fear is that the English baccalaureate, introduced last year as a way of grading results at GCSE, will sideline DT as a subject. "Because of the way the Ebacc works, many schools are now readjusting their curriculum lower down the school to concentrate on Ebacc subjects earlier on – and since these don't include DT, it's not being prioritised.
"In one school, pupils are being withdrawn from a quarter of their DT lessons to concentrate on a modern language because the school wants to boost languages in readiness for those all-important GCSE scores.
"But it makes no sense to have the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills talking about a shortage of people with creative skills in the next decade, while the Department for Education moves towards a more academic curriculum that cuts DT out."
Dyson would like to see DT included in the Ebacc subjects. "I'm all in favour of broadening education, but it needs to be broader still, so DT is acknowledged as the vital subject it is," he says.
"It took me years to realise that DT was my subject, because at my school 'woodwork', as we called it, was for thickos, and I was a bright boy, so the assumption was that I wouldn't be interested in it. This is the perception that I'm fighting to change – because if DT had had the profile it deserves back then, I'd have cottoned on to it a lot sooner than I eventually did."
Eight teachers have so far been identified for the new initiative – among them Steven Parkinson, subject leader for design, technology and engineering at Archbishop Holgate's school in York. "This is about closing the gap between industry and school, so that schools – and that means teachers and pupils – can be inspired in terms of what it's possible to achieve," he says.
"The exciting end of DT is in real-life situations, in business and industry – but often teachers haven't any direct experience of that, because they've gone straight from school through university and training, back into school as a teacher. What they need is to see how their subject makes a difference in boardrooms and on shop floors – and this scheme is going to help do that.
"DT is a whole process – it's a living subject. In school it's too often seen as banging a few nails into pieces of wood, and we have to make people aware of the fact that it's much, much more than that."
In addition to the new funding for DT champions – which will be used largely to provide teaching cover when teachers on the scheme are out of the classroom in industry – the James Dyson Foundation recently announced £1m worth of funding for bursaries for design and engineering students. Last year, it announced a £5m donation to the Royal College of Art, Dyson's alma mater, to provide new buildings including business incubator units – another pledge to boost engineering. It also loans out engineering kits to schools, enabling pupils to try assembling a vacuum cleaner. Dave Elton, head of resistant materials technology at Malmesbury school in Wiltshire, says the kit is an effective way of helping pupils to connect the subject with a real-life industrial challenge. "We tend to use it with sixth-form students, who then work with pupils further down the school, sharing their skills and knowledge," he says.
Elton says he would welcome the chance to become a DT ambassador. "It's a really good idea, with the current shake-ups in education, to have a scheme like this that helps cement the place of DT in the classroom. DT teachers have to be passionate about their subject, and the way they become passionate about it is seeing for themselves how it works in the wider world."
• This article was amended on 14 June 2011. The original referred to Bishop Holgate school in York. This has been corrected.
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network, a lesson in design from the James Dyson Foundation
On the Guardian Teacher Network this week, you can find a special design and technology lesson, prefaced by James Dyson and created by Steven Parkinson, the James Dyson Foundation's 2011 award-winning teacher. Parkinson, from Archbishop Holgate's school in York, has created a presentation that inspires KS3 students to think critically about product design. They will then be tasked with creating their own product – anything from protective clothing for an army officer serving in Afghanistan to a power tool for a family living in the jungle. To download the lesson go to: www.teachers.guardian.co.uk/resources.aspx?q=Dyson&INTCMP=NECEDUIMG4537 or http://bit.ly/ieV6uz.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. Nearly 32,000 teachers have already signed up. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also nearly 2,000 jobs on the site and schools can advertise free http://schools jobs.guardian.co.uk.
Green universities, IT in schools, tobacco money
Last week Education Guardian published the People & Planet Green League, ranking universities for their environmental performance.
Emissions will be mostly related to buildings and their energy performance. Reasons for not doing anything tend to boil down to laziness, lack of knowledge or lack of resources. With a smirk on my face I'd suggest the latter two did not apply.
Plataea via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• In my experience the universities are more concerned with new builds and expansion rather than upgrading existing buildings and consolidation. The main point is to create more space for more PhDs, more post-docs etc. This means they then score more highly for research so they can get more money for more expansion.
cougarlover via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Look at the figures behind the list. For example, Liverpool Uni is building a huge new halls. This building is energy efficient and due to its location will result in some students not having to get the bus. So while emissions will be up at the moment, this is because there needs to be a long-term plan.
Rubenremus via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• This is great work. People & Planet have been leading the way and should be recognised as the main reason most universities show any improvement at all.
alexwest via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Sue Learner reported on middle-class parents and early-years practitioners who view technology as bad for young children.
The Steiner/Waldorf system, which is viewed suspiciously by traditionalist educators, does not introduce computer learning until after 12 years old. This is not based on science, rather a feeling of what is right or beneficial.
Qube2 via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Both my children, now in their late teens, attended a Steiner school. Any engagement with technology was proscribed, at home and at school. The older child was not able to read at the age of 12, still cannot spell and has completely illegible handwriting. It was only when we took him out of the school and bought him a laptop that he was able to communicate in written form – he has had to do all his exams on a computer (at another school). The Steiner method really wasn't effective in his case.
allermuir via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Computers are almost limitlessly stimulating. A few bricks, or crayon and paper require more from a child. The possibility of boredom may be valuable.
robrose via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Lucy Tobin reported on a row at Durham University over tobacco company cash.
In the current environment of cuts, the best thing is to draw funds from as wide a spectrum as possible. Why not use tobacco money? You would use it if recycled through the Treasury in the form of a public grant.
Petunia via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• What advice were the financiers and fundraisers given about the reputation risk and did they ignore it? Surely the money disappeared in a puff of smoke when calculations are made about damage to the Durham brand, negative publicity, withdrawn funding or boycotts, lost opportunity.
CarolineMacInnis via EducationGuardian.co.uk
It's hard to find somewhere that offers courses like furniture making, jewellery and upholstery. Don't kill this off with cuts
The bombshell course cuts at London Metropolitan University where I am doing a part-time furniture-making degree are having unexpected repercussions. None of the cuts have been implemented yet, but potential students are being turned off the idea of a university that hit the headlines at Easter with the news that it is culling 70% of its courses.
London Met is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's financially strapped and desperate to save money; there was no good time to announce any cuts, which of course have been greeted with widespread anger and threats; tutors say that the news has seen interviewees for the new academic year in the autumn – in which courses are still guaranteed – cancelling. Last week, Margaret Hodge, the Labour chair of the Commons public accounts committee, called for students to be made aware of the financial health of the institution they are seeking to attend. Not unreasonable, but such a reality could be catastrophic here.
And all this gloom just added to the pressure-cooker atmosphere around end of term last week. The whole place was frantic, with students working to hand in projects on time. People struggled to find a bench or machine on which to complete their masterpiece. Where once there was time to stop and chat, now we rush past asking "How's it going?", and "Are you winning?" You get a nod, a sigh or a look of anguish.
I made a rather stylish, 50s-look kitchen table in oak, with a groovy pale blue, geometric-pattern Formica top. But it was a desperate race to finish in time and produce something half decent for the summer show. I had a massive swearing fit after two days of fruitless attempts to cut a sliding dovetail joint in the central divider of the table. The divider is vital, joining the back and front rails of the table and providing the tramlines on which the two drawers will glide like Torvill and Dean. But could I cut the joint using the router – a fiendish electric device that is meant to make these things easy? Could I heck as like. In the end I gave up and used a delicate little saw and a chisel – easy! It took 20 minutes. Cue more effing and blinding. Apologies to offended students and technicians for breaking the router.
I sometimes grab a workbench in the guitar-making class, where intense young maestros build stupendous instruments that look and sound like works of art. When the woodwind class test out their latest creations, the ethereal sound of flutes softens the clamour of saws and mallets.
Last week, I found space in a class filled with antique furniture; by my elbow, a French sedan chair with red-plush velvet interior that is being restored after life as a novelty phone box in a French bar; nearby, an 18th-century escritoire and a gothic-looking ebonised grandfather clock. And where else but here among the shavings, glue, paintbrushes and odd-smelling bottles of varnish would you spy a copy of Debrett's – the authoritative tome on how to say howdy-do to aristos (presumably useful when trying to blag a Hepplewhite).
The whole point of this place, a former polytechnic, is that it offers esoteric stuff that other academic institutions don't: jewellery, musical instruments, fine furniture, upholstery, conservation and restoration. Long may this beautiful eccentricity reign. For the sake of creativity in all its diverse forms, please don't desert London Met.
Americans like to celebrate their Irish and Scottish roots, but not their English ones. Why is that?
"My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I've come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way," joked the US president when he visited Ireland en route to the UK last month. Like John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan before him, Obama was just another US president embracing his Celtic heritage. And the practice isn't just for those looking for a vote-winner: Yankees have always loved to talk up their Irish blood – and Scottish, too. But Americans celebrating their Englishness? That's not quite so common.
Now a group of academics want to find out why. Donald MacRaild, professor of history at Northumbria University in Newcastle, and his colleagues Tanja Bueltmann and David Gleeson, reckon English cultural communities did exist in North America, but have been ignored by traditional historians.
The academics believe the commonly accepted truth – that the English assimilated into Anglo-American culture without any need to shout about their separate ethnicity – just isn't true. And they're now embarking on a three-year project to prove their case. The study – called Locating the Hidden Diaspora: The English in North America in Transatlantic Perspective – focuses on the years between 1760 and 1950 to find out where history lost sight of Englishness in America.
"The English," says MacRaild, "have had very little exposure to the historian's gaze, and we want to rectify that. Back in the 1730s, the English in North America formed an array of ethnic clubs and societies, like the St George's Society, in the same way that their Irish and Scottish peers had St Patrick's societies, Caledonian societies and St Andrew's societies. They provided charity – from meal tickets to Christmas gifts – to poorer English immigrants, and celebrated English events. But since then, no one has shown much interest in the English cultural legacy. Whilst the Irish, Scots, Germans, and many other European ethnic groups have been subjected to dozens, if not hundreds, of studies, it hasn't been so for the English."
The Arts and Humanities Research Council clearly agreed with MacRaild's point. The distributor of state cash for academic research has gifted the Northumbria trio £286,000 to re-examine English ethnicity using thousands of untapped sources, including manuscripts, photos, newspaper articles and books. The trio will also look at contemporary traces of Englishness in the US. "A huge number of American traditions come from England," says MacRaild. "We took tiddlywinks to America as well as cricket, association football and the annual Easter egg-rolling tradition at the White House."
Other evidence of Englishness have been spotted in reports of immigrants to the US celebrating St George's Day, toasting Queen Victoria, marking Shakespeare's birthday and Morris dancing. "So much that is English is liked in America, from the way universities work, to a love of English culture and history and a belief in the fundamentals of individualism and democracy," MacRaild adds. "What Americans don't do today is to simply see themselves as an extension of England. That began to die quite quickly after the American Revolution of the 1770s and 1780s."
As the founding colonists, the English were the benchmark against which other ethnic groups measured themselves, the academics have found thus far. "Whilst the Irish saw themselves as a victim diaspora, they saw the English as central to their victimisation. We also have lots of evidence of conflict between the English and Americans over dual allegiances to Uncle Sam and Queen Victoria. In many towns, there was significant conflict between the Irish and the English as they extended their homeland disagreements into the new world."
Previously under-examined manuscripts are throwing new light on centuries of US politics and nationalism, MacRaild reports. He is currently analysing an article in The Republic: A Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Politics & Art from June 1852, which expressed anger that the English in New York were swearing allegiance to the monarch of England. "The magazine's editor accepted that the British consul had every right to 'reiterate their loyalty and subjection to her most excellent Majesty, even to the kissing of her most excellent Majesty's little toe-nail'," says MacRaild. "But that wasn't acceptable for immigrants who, becoming American citizens, had 'solemnly abjured and renounced' Victoria. There were clearly divisions. Nowadays the English are dubbed 'invisible immigrants'. That plainly isn't true."
The Northumbria academics believe that a central reason for the lack of interest in English nationalism abroad was confusion about its status at home. "The apparent absence of a sense of an English diaspora derives partly from the weak and bitty nature of Englishness at home," says MacRaild. "Contemporary English identity, under pressure in a dissolving United Kingdom, drifts between tub-thumping populism and teary-eyed public spectacle. English people experience cultural cringe against anything which separates Englishness from Britishness." The professor points out that the 2001 UK census added the ethnic category Irish, but not English, while in Scotland, Scottish and Irish were identified as ethnic categories alongside British, but English was absent.
The next stage of the Englishness project is to connect the findings to the present day. The researchers are working on books, an exhibition and a series of public lectures to expatriate community groups throughout North America. They also intend to work with local folk groups in the UK to spread the news about the English in America, and hope that English-Americans will make a "homecoming event" like that set up by the Scottish government in 2009 to lure ex-pats back to the land of their ancestors. "Englishness in England is bedevilled with fears about rightwing, nationalist politicians and football hooligans," says MacRaild. "We hope that demonstrating the vibrancy of Englishness beyond England's shores will contribute to debates about how Englishness fits into today's multi-ethnic and increasingly federal political culture."
Internet trolls are maddening, but a lecturer has set up a guide to interacting with them
A new study tries to sharpen our understanding of the highly verbal parasites known as trolls. Trolls – call them internet trolls, if you like – are in some ways quite similar to Plasmodium falciparum, a protozoan parasite that causes malaria in large numbers of human beings. Both kinds of parasite are maddeningly difficult to suppress. They manage, again and again, to return after we thought we'd seen the last of them. Each can, if left untreated, cause agony or worse.
These trolls infect any place where people gather electronically to converse by writing comments to each other. Trolls creep into and crop up anywhere they can, wheedling for attention in chat rooms, Twitter streams, blogs, and, as you may have noticed, in the comments section of online news articles.
One of the many annoying things about internet trolls is that it's difficult to define, with academic rigour, what they do. Claire Hardaker, a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire and a PhD student at Lancaster University, took up the challenge. Her study, Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication, is published somewhat counter-intuitively in the Journal of Politeness Research.
Hardaker presented an early form of the paper to a mostly troll-free audience at the Linguistic Impoliteness and Rudeness conference held at her university in 2009.
After much research and hard work, Hardaker came up with a working definition. A troll is someone "who constructs the identity of sincerely wishing to be part of the group in question, including professing or conveying pseudo-sincere intentions, but whose real intention(s) is/are to cause disruption and/or to trigger or exacerbate conflict for the purposes of their own amusement".
She arrived at this after much trawling through data. Lots of data. A "172-million-word corpus of unmoderated, asynchronous computer-mediated communication", a nine-year collection of commentary in an online discussion group about horse riding. She focused in on the huge number of passages where people mentioned trolls, trolling, trolled, trollish, trolldom, and other variations on the key word "troll".
Distilling the wisdom, Hardaker set up this handy guide to interacting with trolls:
"Trolling can (1) be frustrated if users correctly interpret an intent to troll, but are not provoked into responding, (2) be thwarted if users correctly interpret an intent to troll, but counter in such a way as to curtail or neutralise the success of the troller, (3) fail if users do not correctly interpret an intent to troll and are not provoked by the troller, or, (4) succeed if users are deceived into believing the troller's pseudo-intention(s), and are provoked into responding sincerely. Finally, users can mock troll. That is, they may undertake what appears to be trolling with the aim of enhancing or increasing effect, or group cohesion.
Any comments?
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
• This article was amended on 14 June to correct the name of the researcher's institutions.
View here
(Publication, April 2007 - 27 minutes)
This DVD, with Stephen Heppell providing an inspirational voiceover, shows the contribution an effective school library can make to the educational, creative, emotional and reading development of children and young people-and the aspects of design that can enable this. It also signposts case studies and practical guidance to support library design.
This is a must for all school librarians or anyone involved in school library design and development, especially a new build.
Funded by CILIP School Libraries Group and MLA (Museums Libraries and Archives Council).
Accompanying the DVD are brief, practical 'find out more' (PDF) information sheets. Topics include:
via RSS Feed
The information society is one of our professional policy priority areas.
Here you will find information on:
In 2010 we published User Privacy in Libraries: Guidelines for the Reflective Practitioner. A revised edition was published in May 2011.
via RSS Feed
These privacy Guidelines have been produced to support individual members in adhering to the CILIP Ethical Principles and Code of Professional Practice. It is hoped that these guidelines will enable information professionals at all levels to understand the basic principles of user privacy and to reflect on their own practice and that of their employing organisation.
You can download the full document and sections of it.
The Guidelines were published in December 2009 and revised in May 2011.
Below there is information on what's included in Sections two to six (Section one is the Contents and Introduction). As you can use the search function in the PDFs to find specific areas you are interested in, we have also listed some key search terms.
Issues around personal data and data sharing, use of the internet, encryption and CCTV in libraries. Also includes children and privacy and privacy in prison libraries.
Key search terms: CCTV, children, cybercrime, data sharing, encryption, internet, personal data, public workstation.
Best practice in keeping users informed of library procedures. The type of data kept, for how long and what libraries do when asked for personal data.
Key search terms: data sharing, electronically generated data, personal data, personal security.
Requests for information from members of the public, partner organisations, the police and other security agencies. Also has information on the access restrictions to the electoral register.
Key search terms: electoral register, Data Protection Act, fishing, personal data, private personal data, public personal data, reflective practitioner, subject access request, surveillance, third party data.
Key legislation, statutory bodies and contact details of the confidential services offered by the Ethics Panel to members of CILIP.
Key search terms: data protection principles, EHCR, encrypted data, ethics, ICO, information commissioner's office, public concern at work, whistleblowing.
Use of the internet in prison libraries, CILIP's User Privacy in Libraries Task and Finish Group, Warwickshire Library and Information Service Child Photographic Consent Form and a list of web links for the document.
via RSS Feed
JISC Techdis, a JISC Advance advisory service, has brought together its range of resources in one place to offer organisations the Accessible IT Practice Support Programme, which will help staff to think about how they can use technology in a more inclusive way and meet the needs of all learners.
The online programme takes staff through 12 different modules from generic themes like improving productivity to more specific tutorials on getting the most out of ebooks and PowerPoint. Staff can follow the course as an accredited City and Guilds qualification if they wish.
Alistair McNaught, JISC Techdis senior advisor and co-author said: “The programme is the only one of its kind, providing an ideal platform for raising awareness of inclusion issues at the same time as developing the skills to create more inclusive teaching and learning environments.”
For more information visit the website or contact JISC Techdis on itq@jisctechdis.ac.uk
Make a booking for a training event
via Jisc news
Read the latest blog post from CILIP's Chief Executive
Read Annie's latest blog post about travelling across the UK, her mission and why people matter.
Follow Annie on Twitter @anniemauger
via RSS Feed
Julia Donaldson, the new Children's Laureate and acclaimed children’s author, has given her support for National Libraries Day. She said:
“Hooray for National Libraries Day! So many wonderful things go on in libraries – not just reading, browsing and borrowing, but storytelling, rhyme times, book clubs, activity days, author events and holiday reading challenges – and this special day will be a celebration of them all.”
National Libraries Day will take place in early February 2012. It will be the finale to a week of events that will celebrate libraries and librarians, and highlight the importance of reading.
Julia is a strong supporter of libraries and since taking up the Laureate role she has announced her plan to take a tour of libraries across the UK. She hopes that by visiting more libraries she will bring greater attention to the threats that many library services face.
Explore Julia Donaldson’s books - in pictures - on the Guardian website
-ends-
Press contact:
Mark Taylor, Head of Corporate Marketing and Media Relations, CILIP
Tel: 020 7255 0654
Email: mark.taylor@cilip.org.uk
via RSS Feed
JISC Legal's Jason Miles-Campbell and Matthew Dovey, digital infrastructure programme director at JISC, will be two of ten panellists providing their expert voices on how JISC is helping with the answers to IPR questions from education and research organisations.
Matthew said, “The area of copyright and intellectual property rights is complex. Researchers, learners and academic staff face challenges each day about when and how they need to comply. Advice and guidance from JISC Legal and the JISC-led SCA provides expertise in the area and I’m looking forward to taking part in the discussions this afternoon.”
All comments are welcome on the Guardian higher education network blog today (Thursday 9 June) between 1-4pm.
Find out more about the debate and join in at 1pm
via Jisc news
Young researchers are increasingly using free web technology to help with their research – but they are not active in creating content, says a major British Library/ JISC generation Y, ‘Researchers of Tomorrow’ report.
The UK’s largest survey of the information seeking behaviours of doctoral students born between 1982-1994, commonly dubbed generation Y, shows a ‘modest increase’ in the students’ use of web technology in the last year.
Compared with a sample of older students, more of the generation Y sample had used at least one kind of open web or Web 2.0 technology with only 8% saying they had used none at all.
The report shows that passive use of these open web technologies is more common than active use. Researchers are reading wikis and blogs without adding to them; they make passive use of internet forums for research, and few blog themselves. For example, while 29% made passive use of internet discussion forums, only 13% were active on them.
The generation Y students also look to their peers for advice and inspiration on technology more than key influencers like their supervisors and library and information services staff.
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Charles Hutchings, market research manager at JISC, said: “While the first year report challenged assumptions being made about these students, this second report delves deeper to give us a clearer picture of the typical generation Y doctoral student. In contrast to older students at the same point in their studies, they typically prefer tailor-made advice and guidance; are unwilling to share their research prematurely; prefer to work in their institutions rather than at home and are more relaxed about their research progress than older doctoral students.
“At JISC we’re interested in this picture because it gives us a clear reference point for our investments in technology for research in universities and colleges. These students are the academic professionals of the future that universities and other organisations will be supporting so we need to help them understand this group in as much detail as possible.”
Isabel Oswell, head of business & research audiences at the British Library, commented on the report: “Consultation is at the heart of how the Library and JISC engage with their researchers. This second year report shows that the breadth and depth of online research material is of increasing relevance to researchers. However, it also shows that libraries need to play a role in helping researchers navigate their way through this plethora of material so that researchers make the best use of the resources that are available to them.”
Oswell continued: “We look forward to understanding more about our generation Y researchers this year and to the final report next year.”
The report is the second publication in the three-year study which was commissioned by the British Library and JISC to establish a benchmark for research behaviour, against which future generations can be measured – and also to provide guidance for librarians and information specialists on how best to meet the research needs of generation Y scholars.
The study includes a survey of doctoral students of any age to provide background to the generation Y research. The first report took place at the end of June 2009 with the assistance of over 70 universities and covering all subject disciplines. It was repeated in 2010 and will be launched for the third and final time in mid 2011.
via Jisc news
The National Federation of Women’s Institutes have voted in favour of campaigning in support of public libraries at their AGM. With over 208,000 members and a history of campaigning on a wide range of important issues, the WI is respected as a powerful lobbying force.
“I’m thrilled that we have a new and powerful friend fighting our corner,” said Annie Mauger, Chief Executive of CILIP, “It’s fabulous news for the millions of people across the UK that love their libraries. Libraries are an essential education and information resource. They are at the heart of communities across the country and are too important to lose.”
Ruth Bond, Chair of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, said:
“WI members confirmed their support for local library services today and have pledged their commitment to fight to prevent local library closures wherever they are proposed. As an educational organisation, WI members clearly recognise the worth that local library services bring to communities, often in isolated areas, and we will now work hard to prevent such services being removed from the areas where they are often needed most.”
Annie Mauger addressed the 4,500 strong audience at the Liverpool Echo Arena and praised the WI for their influence and ability to make change happen. In her speech, Annie explained why libraries are so important:
“We believe that libraries make change happen. Libraries change people through information and knowledge. As a child, books open up the worlds of knowledge and imagination. All through life libraries empower people through access to information beyond anything that anyone could buy for themselves. Libraries help fight illiteracy, ignorance and exclusion. Libraries bring people access to the world beyond their horizon.”
Find out more about the WI’s campaigns and projects.
-ends-
Press contact:
Mark Taylor, Head of Corporate Marketing and Media Relations, CILIP
Tel: 020 7255 0654
Mobile: 07792 635 305
Email: mark.taylor@cilip.org.uk
via RSS Feed
The ethical principles set out below are current CILIP policy - 2011
The conduct of members should be characterised by the following general principles, presented here in no particular order of priority:
1. Concern for the public good in all professional matters, including respect for diversity within society, and the promoting of equal opportunities and human rights.
2. Concern for the good reputation of the information profession.
3. Commitment to the defence, and the advancement, of access to information, ideas and works of the imagination.
4. Provision of the best possible service within available resources.
5. Concern for balancing the needs of actual and potential users and the reasonable demands of employers.
6. Equitable treatment of all information users.
7. Impartiality, and avoidance of inappropriate bias, in acquiring and evaluating information and in mediating it to other information users.
8. Respect for confidentiality and privacy in dealing with information users.
9. Concern for the conservation and preservation of our information heritage in all formats.
10. Respect for, and understanding of, the integrity of information items and for the intellectual effort of those who created them.
11. Commitment to maintaining and improving personal professional knowledge, skills and competences.
12. Respect for the skills and competences of all others, whether information professionals or information users, employers or colleagues.
via RSS Feed
This policy area covers the contribution that library and information services in all sectors make to the promotion of public health and patient well-being.
Ambitious NHS change only possible with the right information strategy, says CILIP.
CILIP's response to the White Paper - Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, October 2010The response was put together by the Health Libraries Group on behalf of CILIP. In the response we welcome the emphasis put on information – described as an “information revolution” – and its importance to delivering efficient and quality services. Our members work across the NHS and the healthcare sector more generally, meeting the information requirements of patients, clinicians, managers, commissioners and students. This expertise, and that of other information professionals, needs to be recognised, properly focused and developed to gain the maximum benefit.
via RSS Feed
Reports to: Policy Forum
Terms of Reference: The Health Strategy Group is a joint body of CILIP and SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries).
The Health Strategy Group brings together major professional organisations within the library and information community of England. It:
The HSG includes representatives from CILIP, SCONUL, the NHS/HE Forum and the National Library of Health.
Date Constituted: April 2006
Membership:
Chair: Brian Clifford
Joint Secretaries: Guy Daines (CILIP), Ann Rossiter (SCONUL)
Members:
Brian Clifford - Chair (RLUK)
David Stewart (SHALL)
Betsy Anagnostelis (UHMLG)
Elizabeth Newbold (British Library)
Andrea Peace (CHILL)
Christine Fowler (SCONUL)
Guy Daines (CILIP)
Ann Rossiter (SCONUL)
Maurice Wakeham (CILIP Health Libraries Group)
Work of HSG
Open letter to Professor Hill (July 2008)
(Word doc)
On his national review of NHS Library Services in England report.
More information
Further details of the work of HSG, including reports, action plans and minutes are on the SCONUL website: Health Strategy Group
via RSS Feed
Finalists announced for 2011 CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) is pleased to announce the finalists in this year’s Libraries Change Lives Award, one of the leading accolades in the library and information world.
The three projects in the running for this prestigious annual award are:
1. The NEALIS project
(North East Accessible Library and Information Services)
Providing improving library, information and reading services to blind and partially sighted people throughout North East England, this is a wide ranging partnership project across a variety of organisations including 12 public library authorities, and is endorsed by the Society of Chief Librarians and Share the Vision Six Steps pledge.
2. Making the Difference: Opportunities for Adults With Learning Disabilities
(Kent Libraries and Archives)
An innovative project that welcomes adults with learning disabilities into libraries and works with them to develop services that meet their needs, and help them to lead more active lives in their communities.
3. Our Tyneside & The History Club (Newcastle City Libraries)
A pioneering partnership that engages adults with learning difficulties with their local heritage and family histories through practical, skill-developing activities, guided tours and talks in a safe and friendly environment.
Watch videos of all three finalist projects
Linda Constable, Senior Manager, Customer Services for Dorset Libraries, and chair of the judging panel, comments: "In their very different ways, all three of the shortlisted projects have had a huge impact on the lives of disadvantaged people in their communities. In these difficult times, when the value of libraries is being called constantly into question, these projects leave one in no doubt that libraries definitely change lives”Now in its 20th year, the Libraries Change Lives Award, which is open to all UK libraries, highlights and rewards partnership projects that change lives, bring people together and demonstrate innovation and creativity. Since it began in 1992, the award has had a significant impact on the library world and local communities nationwide. Previous winners include Bookstart - first piloted by Birmingham Libraries - which has now reached 3 millions babies and their parents across the UK, and has been recognised as making a significant difference to literacy and numeracy levels in primary schools.
The final judging for this year’s award is underway, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 13th July by author and libraries campaigner Alan Gibbons at the Umbrella Conference in Hatfield. The winning library receives a trophy and prize money of £4,000, with the other two finalists each receiving £1500.
Press contact:
Kasey Butler, CILIP
Tel: 0207 255 0650
Email: kasey.butler@cilip.org.uk
via RSS Feed
Kent Libraries and Archives has won the 2011 CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award. The winner was announced at ceremony as part of CILIP's biennual Umbrella conference on 13 July.
An innovative project that welcomes adults with learning disabilities into libraries and works with them to develop services that meet their needs, and help them to lead more active lives in their communities.
Finalists:
The NEALIS project (North East Accessible Library and Information Services)
Providing improving library, information and reading services to blind and partially sighted people throughout North East England, this is a wide ranging partnership project across a variety of organisations including 12 public library authorities, and is endorsed by the Society of Chief Librarians and Share the Vision Six Steps pledge.
Our Tyneside & The History Club (Newcastle City Libraries)
A pioneering partnership that engages adults with learning difficulties with their local heritage and family histories through practical, skill-developing activities, guided tours and talks in a safe and friendly environment.
Making the Difference: Opportunities for Adults With Learning Disabilities (Kent Libraries and Archives)
Watch a video about the project on Youtube
Can't access Youtube? Download the video from the CILIP website (WMV 20MB)
“I have never felt so alive in my entire life.”
Making the Difference arose out of Kent Libraries and Archives’s desire to make sure that its services for adults with learning disabilities were helping to integrate them in everyday life. The project sought to better understand the needs of adults with learning disabilities, their carers and support workers, and provide new opportunities, experiences and skills to encourage independence and fun. 721 adults with learning disabilities have taken part in library activities since April 2010. These have included creating an information library, staffed by adults with learning disabilities employed as paid librarians; placing Easy Access collections of books and DVDs chosen by adults with learning disabilities in 12 town centre libraries; providing volunteering and work experience opportunities, and holding regular Biblio Hour and Coffee and Chat sessions. A highlight of the project was a “Putting On the Ritz” 1920s fashion evening.
The NEALIS Project (North East Accessible Library and Information Services)
Watch a video about the project on Youtube
Can't access Youtube? Download the video from the CILIP website (WMV 20MB)“I stopped using the library because I couldn’t see the titles; [this scheme] changes how I feel about coming back into the library. It’s an excellent idea.”
The NEALIS Project has been working since November 2007 to improve library, information and reading services to blind and partially sighted people across North East England. The partnership is wide ranging and includes 12 public library authorities, 6 voluntary sector organisations, Society of Chief Librarians, CILIP, MLA and Share the Vision, as well as new partners outside the library community. Its focus has been on developing low cost, practical ways to improve library information and reading services to blind and partially sighted people. Leaflets with details of the services on offer have been widely distributed; training days for staff have been held, and a VIP area with a specially adapted PC and screen has been created at Newcastle City Library. And young people on a local Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme have been paired with visually impaired people to act as reading buddies.
Our Tyneside & The History Club (Newcastle City Libraries)
Watch a video about the project on Youtube
Can't access Youtube? Download the video from the CILIP website (WMV 20MB)“The History Club has been very interesting. It has allowed me to meet new people and visit different places. Finding out about local history I’ve learnt things I never realised.”
Our Tyneside started in November 2009, in partnership with Better Days, a charity working with adults with learning difficulties; the Sage in Gateshead; and Newcastle Libraries. Lasting 12 weeks it aimed to educate and engage participants with their local heritage in a safe and friendly environment. Taking part in a variety of activities (research, photography, creative writing, music and crafts) as well as guided tours and talks, the group grew in confidence, self esteem and enjoyed the sessions. It was then clear that there was a huge amount of interest in local and family history and a need for this weekly activity to continue. Newcastle Libraries launched The History Club in April 2010, open to any adult with learning difficulties. Topics have included “The Great Fire of Newcastle”, “Newcastle United” and “The Ghosts of Newcastle”, and The History Club has become a vital part of participants’ and staff’s lives, with 100% of participants reporting that they find it fun
via RSS Feed
Candidates must have been working in libraries and information for two years (full-time equivalent) or longer. A Certified Affiliate with a minimum of two years' relevant post-Certification experience and development can submit an application for Chartership.
ACLIP Certification handbook (pdf)
ACLIP has been credit rated by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) - see info bar to the right for more information about SQA. In order to achieve credit rating and be included on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) CILIP's formal application to SQA can be accessed here (word). This document will help you explain to employers what you can do and also contains further advice and guidance on the sort of material you could include in your portfolio.
via RSS Feed
Study says nursery staff and 'affluent' parents are spurning new technologies in early years
While most pre-school children are playing with cars or drawing with crayons, a group of three-year-olds at a nursery in Bath are colouring in on iPads and navigating their way through an interactive storybook.
Snapdragons is one of the first nurseries in Britain to use iPads to teach children. It is buying touchscreen tablets for all of its six nurseries. "Digital technology is part of children's everyday lives," says manager iPads. "I think it would be negligent for us not to focus on it."
The iPads are used for learning the basics about letters, numbers, shapes and colours, as well as drawing and even composing music. "Staff are also using it for interactive storytelling. The children can press the characters and see them move. I am not saying it should replace books, and we would never use the iPads to replace valuable outdoor time," he says.
But a new study suggests many nursery staff – and parents too – see time spent using screens as a bad thing, liable to make children unsociable or, even, obese.
Dr Rosie Flewitt from the Open University says nurseries and pre-schools that engage with new technologies in constructive and exciting ways are "the exception rather than the norm". Flewitt and her research associate, Dr Sylvia Wolfe from Cambridge University, found many early years practitioners lacked confidence in how to use technology, were uncertain about its value, "or feared the potential harm to 'childhood'".
Their study, Multimodal Literacies in the Early Years, found some parents and practitioners are afraid "new technologies might damage children's wellbeing, social interaction and learning".
Concerns have been raised in the past about how many children from poor families miss the opportunity to use computers and iPods, but this time it is educated, middle-class families who are in the spotlight, as well as nurseries.
"Some children from highly educated, affluent families had very little exposure to new technologies," says Flewitt, "whereas some children from less affluent families were given excellent support at home to develop their literacy skills through diverse uses of new technologies."
The study found the children who were the most computer savvy "were also the ones who took part in the greatest range of indoor and outdoor activities, and led extremely diverse lives".
Flewitt says some parents have been influenced by books and the media that have explored how the modern world damages children. "Parents are very vulnerable to scaremongering about the dangers often associated with new technologies," she says. And, according to Lydia Plowman, professor of education at Stirling University, for some parents and practitioners "technology is seen as responsible for children's lack of social skills and emotional development, the loss of pleasure in books and reading, and attacks on their physical and mental wellbeing."
Plowman, author of a study called Rethinking Young Children and Technology, says parents pick up concerns from media stories about couch potato kids who prefer computer games to sport and become antisocial and obese. And parents often draw on their own experiences of being a child to guide them: digital technology is not part of their childhood memories. "For parents who like to feel that they have a reasonable level of control over their young children's activities, keeping up with all these changes can seem daunting."
Flewitt's study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, concludes that parental beliefs had a huge impact on how children used digital media, with some children developing sophisticated skills, while others lacked both skills and confidence. Practitioners in nurseries and pre-schools are in an ideal position to bridge the growing gap, she says. But they are not given the support they need.
"There is a lack of guidance on how to support literacy with digital technologies," says Flewitt. The exception was with children with learning difficulties or physical difficulties, as practitioners had realised new technology could really help.
"If early years education continues to focus exclusively on traditional forms of literacy, then it will be failing to provide all children with the skills they will need at school and in their future lives," she says.
Dr Richard House, senior lecturer in psychology at Roehampton University and founder of Open Eye, which campaigns against the Early Years Foundation Stage, often called the "nappy curriculum", is one of those who believes younger children should not be using digital technologies.
He points to "an increasing body of research which shows that early exposure to these technologies actually compromises healthy child development in all kinds of negative ways".
He believes the tendency to not engage with new technologies is a conscious decision "made by highly experienced practitioners with an intuitive feel for what is developmentally appropriate, rather than being the fear-driven, reactionary viewpoint that the researchers seem to be assuming".
Literacy expert Sue Palmer, author of the bestseller Toxic Childhood, says Flewitt is "completely misguided". "Too much engagement with this quick-fix technology is making it more difficult for some children to learn to read and write," she says. "Learning to read and write is not easy. It is a long, slow process. We already have problems with children not being able to hold a pen or pencil. But we are giving our kids instant gratification all the time with ICT and it makes it harder for them to persevere with something that takes a while to learn." And in any case, "Any digital skills that pre-school children learn will be out of date by the time they are teenagers," she says.
Dr John Siraj-Blatchford, honorary professor at the University of Swansea centre for child research, believes the iPad and other new mobile touchscreen technologies have enormous potential in supporting children's literacy. "Generally speaking, if technologies are suitable for three- to five-year-olds, adults don't find them too challenging." He agrees that "there is an articulate but relatively small minority of parents who are very concerned about children's screen time", but believes the new technologies will change attitudes. "The new mobile technologies often encourage interaction rather than the solitary and sedentary activity encouraged by arcade games," says Siraj-Blatchford.
Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, a national organisation for early years practitioners, says: "Technology in the early years is a very emotive area. There does seem to be a middle-class attitude that technology is not always good. But it is all about moderation and context."
Durham University's decision to accept award funding from tobacco firm causes a storm of protest
When Durham University launched an appeal to fund postgraduate scholarships for female students from Afghanistan, the last thing it must have expected was criticism. But despite the successful chancellor's appeal raising more than £600,000, and rapidly being put to use, with two women from Kabul University already enrolled in postgraduate studies at the northern university, the initiative has put Durham at the centre of controversy.
The reason? £125,000 of the money used to bring the Afghans to the UK was a donation from British American Tobacco (BAT), the cigarette giant that last year made a £2.5bn profit selling brands including Lambert & Butler cigarettes and Rizla papers to smokers around the world. That, say students, academics, charities and alumni, is putting the university's reputation at risk. They are uniting to condemn the funding of Durham's Afghan Women Appeal, and to ask the university to send the cash back.
"Although it may seem admirable to take funds for a worthy cause, BAT's efforts to look respectable come at a very cheap price," says Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK. "The death and disease caused by BAT's products dwarf this small award." The cancer charity – which itself will not financially support institutions working with the tobacco industry – believes Durham may have contravened the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That legislation, ratified by the UK government, says government-funded bodies should not engage in "socially responsible" activities that are funded by cigarette makers. "Durham University should be ashamed to have taken these funds," King adds. "We hope that other less lethal sources of funding can be found to support the education of Afghan women."
Those views are echoed by many groups within the university. While Durham's student newspaper, Palatinate, reports that some on campus believe the Afghan education ends justify the means, its editorial reads: "However laudable the end, the university would do well to accept that the association with such a tobacco company is in itself damaging to Durham's reputation as a first-class British university." Meanwhile, a group of leading Durham academics have written to their vice-chancellor saying the acceptance of BAT's gift "does not sit well with our commitment as a university to being 'a socially responsible institution'". They also point out to colleagues across British academia that the Universities Superannuation Scheme – the pension fund of choice for most UK academics – invested £214m in BAT last year. The group urges academics to "take a stand about their retirement income being dependent on the prosperity of a company which actively markets its deadly products worldwide."
Durham University's leadership, unsurprisingly, takes a different stance. "The chancellor's appeal to fund a programme of postgraduate scholarships for Afghan women has been widely recognised as a pioneering fundraising drive," its spokesman says. "The university can confirm that in June 2010 it accepted a financial donation from BAT to support this appeal. Alongside donations from more than 2,000 others, this contributed towards the appeal's target to fund a Durham University education for five female graduates from Kabul University each year for the next five years … The BAT donation was accepted following careful consideration by the university executive committee in line with its gift-acceptance policy, which is approved by university council. Maximising the resources available to support studentships is an important way in which the university supports its educational purpose."
But its mollification doesn't seem to be working. On and off campus, outrage is growing. "Academic institutions should not take funding from any tobacco company," says Martin Dockrell, for the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash). "The industry has a long record of systematically undermining academic health research – notably on the role of smoking in causing cancer, the addictiveness of nicotine and the effect of second-hand smoke."
Dockrell adds that BAT could use Durham's acceptance of cash to boost its own credentials. "Internal tobacco industry documents show how the industry uses corporate social responsibility to preserve its 'licence to operate'," he says. "By appearing to be good corporate citizens who advance the education of Afghan women, they will be tolerated despite the harm they cause to health." A BAT spokeswoman disputed that claim, however. "We approach corporate social investment as an end in itself, rather than as a way to promote ourselves," she says. "We have long supported tertiary education, including management and business education, and will continue to do so."
Yet Durham's wider community is also noticing the furore. Keith Burnett, who studied for a master's in social science at Durham in the 1990s, has complained to its chancellor, the writer Bill Bryson. "The University of Durham should have known better," Burnett says. "It's meant to have an active ethical scrutiny process, which has evidently failed in this case. The only sure way for the university to restore its reputation now will be to return the money."
Burnett – who has worked for the NHS on anti-smoking initiatives – is also worried about the impact of the BAT funding on individual researchers, and whether that was considered by the ethics committee who rubberstamped the donation.
This is a growing problem for academics, particularly as universities' squeezed budgets put them under more pressure to accept money from large corporations, or even individuals, according to Prem Sikka, professor of accountancy and lecturer on business ethics at the University of Essex.
"Even if tobacco companies like BAT don't pressurise university staff directly, academics will feel forced to censor themselves – they will fear that upsetting a financial benefactor might cause the university to lose its funding, or hit their promotion prospects," Sikka says. "This kind of donation always creates a dilemma. But sadly it's part of the increasing corporatisation of universities. There's this idea that money from any source will do – the focus is increasingly on money and decreasingly on values."
The Durham tobacco funding controversy isn't the first. Back in 2000, Nottingham University's acceptance of £4m in sponsorship from BAT caused a stream of academic resignations as campaign groups said it had sold out by accepting "tainted" money. More recently, contentious donations have included the £1.5m given to the London School of Economics from the family of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which led to the resignation of its director Howard Davies.
The latest controversy proves just how seriously universities need to think about their "mission statement" before accepting cash, says Jonathan Wolff, professor of philosophy at University College London.
"It's a great idea to provide scholarships for Afghan women at Durham," he says. "And because it is such a great idea I would have thought that it should be possible to fundraise in a less controversial manner. In taking money, universities should have regard to their mission statement, or general statement of aims, and consider whether accepting money from a particular source is consistent with their announced aims."
Universities have always had roles that transcend national boundaries, says Peter Scott, but there is an ugly side to internationalisation
Like widening participation, internationalisation is a "good thing". But while widening participation is more observed in the breach than in the observance, bar the efforts of a dozen big urban "post-1992" universities, internationalisation is for everyone. In a word search of university strategic plans, "internationalisation" would probably top the poll. Examples abound. For instance, University College London proudly proclaims it is "London's Global University".
But what does internationalisation mean? The experts, of course, define it as the highest stage of international relations among universities. It is not just a fancy word to justify packing in more (high-fee) international students, or even a label to describe exotic partnerships (which inevitably demand much travelling by senior managers). The whole institution – its courses and curriculum, all its students, its research reach – has become infused with an international spirit.
I prefer a simpler distinction – the good, the bad and the ugly. Internationalisation is a clumsy word used to describe a wide range of activities, some of which we should be very proud of, and others best left in the shadows. But first, we need to dispose of the rhetoric. The overwhelming majority of universities were established as national institutions – for example, the big civic universities here in Britain and the land-grant universities in the US. They were not spontaneously created somewhere in the international ether.
Of course, universities have always had roles that transcend their national boundaries. Students and scholars have always been "mobile". International research collaboration has always flourished. Scientific communities have always been global. But all of this happened without any need for managerial-bureaucratic initiatives to "internationalise" the university. Internationalisation is a neologism, dating back to the 1980s at the earliest – and, disconcertingly, aligned with neo-liberalism.
So back to the good, the bad and the ugly. The good aspects of internationalisation are things such as its potential to transform the lives of international students; its role in sustaining, and growing, science and scholarship through vigorous academic exchanges; and its potential to build social and economic capacity (especially, but not exclusively, in developing countries). The first of these will always endure. But the second nowadays often seems a contingent effect of other, less wholesome, objectives; while the third, I fear, is dwindling into insignificance.
The bad aspects, sadly, are the mainstream drivers of internationalisation. First is the pressure to recruit international students, almost entirely because they can be charged higher fees. Maybe the post-Browne ability to charge English students much higher fees will curb that appetite.
Second is the drive for geopolitical and commercial advantage. In the eyes of government, this is what it is all about. For institutions it has the advantage of gold-plating, and future-proofing, international student recruitment. Either way, ethical considerations count for little. The recent London School of Economics imbroglio with Gaddafi was a modestly venial example. Of greater concern is the way British universities have piled into China, human rights record be damned.
Third is global positioning. UCL's "global" claim in its strapline is an assertion of status. The same applies to membership of global alliances of research-intensive universities or just of "top" universities. Maybe as national hierarchies have become more open, as they have in Britain with the abandonment of the binary distinction between universities and polytechnics and the unpredictable effect of league tables, newly constructed global hierarchies offer a comforting refuge.
Finally, the ugly: "international flight". Universities that struggle to recruit students at home have targeted less discerning international students to fill their places. Others have attempted to overcome chronic threats to their sustainability, perhaps because they are too small or too specialised, by engaging in what can only be described as foreign adventures, fraught with financial and reputational risks. Both strategies subvert their core responsibilities as UK institutions founded and funded with national purposes in mind.
There is an urgent need to reset the compass of internationalisation, to steer towards the good and away from the ugly. Not only is this morally right, it is also probably in the best long-term interests of the sector. At the very least, it provides firm ground on which to stand against the rising wind of anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, anti-"other" populism.
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education
There's a sharp increase in people signing up to learn a trade, and a lot of the new recruits are women
Remember the joke, "how many women does it take to change a lightbulb?" Well, forget the old punchline. The new answer appears to be "just one, and she'll charge you a £40 callout fee".
Colleges are reporting a sudden upsurge in students signing up to learn how to be an electrician, decorator, mechanic or builder, and much of the increase seems to be down to female students. Far more women are now choosing to train in these trades, rejecting the more traditionally "female" roles of hairdresser, childminder, care worker or beautician.
"Welding and fabrication is absolutely booming," says Andy Dawson, assistant director of manufacturing and technology at Preston College. All his welding courses are full and he's recently had to put on two more - also running at capacity.
Overall applications for Preston College's mechanical engineering and electrical engineering courses are up 50% on 2010. Bournemouth and Poole college has 17% more enrolled on painting and decorating courses this year compared with last, and Harlow College is this year processing more than double the number of applications for painting and decorating it received for entry in September 2010.
Ask students why they're choosing to train for these jobs and the answer, Harlow principal Colin Hindmarsh, says, is that "these students are thinking about their future and doing something about it".
"The labour market for the under-24s looks grim. We're finding that our students are becoming more entrepreneurial, they want to be in charge of their own destiny and these sorts of vocational courses allow them to set up their own businesses. They can be self-employed and self-reliant.
"In the current climate, without getting a high-level qualification in a trade like welding, they don't think they will get a job," says Dawson.
The rapid rise in the cost of a degree may well be playing a part, says Michael Grange at Derby College. "With universities charging higher fees, we seem to be attracting the better students; certainly the ones who apply have better qualifications and are more focused."
"We've had a significant increase in the number of women on this kind of course," says Hindmarsh, "most noticeably in painting and decorating. At level 2, two thirds of our students are female."
At Bournemouth and Poole College, head of construction Mark Loose says the number of women doing painting and decorating is up by 30%. At Preston college, Dawson says that whereas a few years ago six or seven girls might have done welding and fabrication and motor vehicle courses, this year it's 40 to 50. Newcastle college has taken on its first female scaffolding apprentice, and hopes more will apply.
For Kerry Isom, 22, just finishing her second year as a painting and decorating apprentice at Bournemouth and Poole College, the motivation comes from the creativity she can bring to her work, and job satisfaction. Currently employed by her local council and doing one day at week at college, Isom's work is, says her tutor, "exceptional", and won her the Johnstone's Young Painter of the Year award last October.
"I wasn't sure about the job prospects at first," she says. "But I like the fact you're not behind a desk, and you can see what you've done. Painting's quite relaxing!"
Isom wants to travel and knows she's got a skill that will make her good money around the world.
Ruth Brough, 49, is currently studying to be a plumber and renewables installer with New Career Skills. Changing careers and looking to "make the most of the rest of my working life" she hopes she has discovered a market niche where she can work in the practical way she enjoys, and help people to live the greener lifestyle she believes in.
Plumbers and electricians are now having to get to grips with green technologies and more stringent health and safety regulations, says the chief executive of New Career Skills, Steven Wines — an evolution that may be attracting more women as the perception of traditional trades changes from blue collar to "green collar".
Wines also notes that female plumbers or electricians have an interesting market advantage: hiring a woman for work in the home can be reassuring for older people, or women living alone, which, he says, "creates a niche for a female tradesperson".
But are there jobs to be had in sectors that have always employed men and may be reluctant to take on a woman, no matter how well qualified? According to Tony Joyce, head of construction at Tresham College, "the opportunities need more advertising from the construction industry."
The informal way in which recruitment often happens in vocational trades still prevents women getting jobs in significant numbers, says Linda Clarke, professor of European industrial relations at Westminster University. "If you go into colleges, there's a far higher proportion of women training than you'll find actually working in the labour market," she says. "And I don't see that's changing very much."
However at Newcastle College, Colin Stott, director of the National Construction Academy, says that in his experience, companies are more interested in the someone's competencies than their gender. "Many [women] have had success as finalists in national competitions and the majority have found employment following completion of their course," he says.
Dawson confirms this: "Particularly in motor vehicle, females are as good if not better. And their work ethic is often very good. They seem to be more rational about doing the tasks and, particularly in the 16-18 age range, a bit more mature. They're more methodical and are very keen."
Says Loose: "They have proved to be more competent decorators than the boys — often their drawing skills are better, their attention to detail, and they're much calmer. Girls tend to get to a higher level. They who have done particularly well in the last three years."
The pay for some trades is far cry from the relatively low earnings of childminders, care workers and beauty therapists. Welders involved in the construction of the BBC's new Manchester home would, says Dawson, be "earning between £30,000 and £50,000". And plasterers, says Grange, can pull in £650 a week.
Stott points out that these days he's also able to recruit female tutors, which, in turn, transforms the career expectations of all students, male and female.