Culture and the development of a unique sub-system for the education for engineers in the UK: A historical study. Part 2. Its accidental evaluation.

This evidence based study follows from a previous paper which described the origins of a unique sub-system of higher technological education that was fortuitously established by the British government in England and Wales in 1955, and lasted for a decade. Although no official evaluation was ever undertaken of the colleges that formed that sub-system, a number of investigations into different aspects of the diploma programme that was the core of the system were completed. The specifications of one of these studies accidentally required a study of the system, or at the very least "pictures" of the functioning of different components of the system. Unfortunately the study of the system as a "whole" was never published. However, inspection of the other investigations suggests that taken together their parameters would provide an informal evaluation of this sub-system. The intention of this discussion is to undertake such an evaluation. But no attempt is made to incorporate into the discussion the results of work undertaken by other authorities that was tangential to or in any other way related to the development and demise of the sub-system. The system and its development described in the previous paper demonstrated the importance of understanding the culture in which educational decisions are made, for those decisions are a reflection of the society in which they are made. Opportunities taken, and opportunities lost are a function of those mores; for some a decision will be an opportunity to be taken, and for others it will be an opportunity lost. This study confirms the importance of "culture" in educational decision making, be it in terms of career choice, institutional status, or curriculum and teaching. Following a brief introduction, essentially a short precis of paper 1, answers to fourteen questions derived from the philosophy of the Percy Report, and other elements of its discussion are given in the light of the findings of the investigations undertaken. Taken together these papers raise questions about the scope of engineering education research. Most of the participants in the investigations reported here were working in social science departments; several in pursuit of higher degrees. Given that the Percy and other official committees used the term technology (ist) to describe engineers, and given that the public may think in this way if they are not thinking about IT and smart phones, might not a better expression of the area be engineering and technology education research? A list of abbreviations together with a time line is given at the beginning of paper 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]