News: UK government ministers are to scrap the draft design and technology syllabus for secondary schools amid claims by industry figures including inventor James Dyson (pictured) that the curriculum had been "diluted" with skills such as cooking and gardening.

The Department for Education will now review subject requirements after admitting to the Telegraph that the curriculum, which was drawn up just two months ago, had been "dumbed down".

The document was criticised after it emerged that pupils aged between five and 14 would receive lessons in sewing and knitting, bicycle maintenance and cultivating plants for "decorative displays".

Writing in The Times in February, James Dyson, inventor of the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner, said the academic rigour demanded in other core subjects was missing in the government's "diluted" design and technology draft syllabus.

"Life skills such as how to grill a tomato and what to do if your bike chain falls off take pride of place," he said. "Gardening has become a key component in a subject that should contextualise science and maths in a practical format."

Pupils should learn to invent as well as mend and maintain, he added. "If the British automotive industry is to continue its renaissance it needs young engineers capable of questioning and improving rather than just fixing."

During consultations, which ended on 16 April, Britain's Design Council urged people to campaign against the "potentially retrograde proposal for design in our schools", while the Design & Technology Association, a body that campaigns for design and technology teaching, said the draft syllabus would "seriously undermine 20 years of development in the subject".

A government source yesterday told the Telegraph the revised curriculum would be geared towards helping pupils towards jobs in manufacturing, engineering and computer-aided design. "We have had a lot of good ideas on how to make the D&T curriculum more rigorous and more in line with what industry needs," the source said.

The move comes just two months after the government abandoned controversial plans that would have removed design and other creative subjects from the compulsory school curriculum after age 14, proposals that were fought by key industry figures such as Apple's Jonathan Ive and architect Norman Foster as part of the #IncludeDesign campaign.

D&AD president Neville Brody had described the government's plans to "demolish" creative education as "insanity", telling Dezeen: "The creative industries need high-quality creative graduates. If we're not getting the graduates, we’re not going to sustain the industry."

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Photograph by Eva Rinaldi.

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News: the UK government has abandoned controversial plans that would have removed design and other creative subjects from the school curriculum, it was announced today. Campaigners who fought the plans described the move as "fantastic news" for the design industry.

Education Secretary Michael Gove admitted that proposals to introduce an English Baccalaureate (EBacc) that focusses only on maths, English, sciences, languages and a humanities subject were "a bridge too far" for secondary school students. Instead, he plans to "restore rigour" to the existing GCSE system by offering students these five subjects, plus three more that could include art or design.

"My idea that we end the competition between exam boards to offer GCSEs in core academic qualifications and have just one - wholly new - exam in each subject was just one reform too many at this time," said Gove, as he announced the U-turn.

The move has been celebrated by members of the #IncludeDesign campaign, who have been rallying against the plans and gaining support from key industry figures, including Apple's Jonathan Ive, designer Terence Conran and architect Norman Foster, as well as brands and organisations from Adobe to the Design Council.

"This is fantastic news for the whole of the design industry and creative economy," said campaign organiser Joe Mcleod. "As an industry this gives us an opportunity to work with education leaders and the government to help support the shared vision of a world-class syllabus that offers students a fully rounded education."

Mcleod, who is also a director at digital design studio ustwo, explained that the move will help to secure the future of the UK's creative industries. "Without these changes to the EBacc, we would have lost the designers, architects and creatives of the future, as their talents would have been constricted by schools being pushed to prioritise an unnecessarily narrow range of subjects that reflected the past and not the future.

"The creative industries are worth more than £60 billion a year to the UK economy and it would have been a catastrophe if creative subjects such as design and technology had been lost from schools."

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) also supported the decision, but insists that there is still work to be done to ensure creative subjects are promoted alongside the academic curriculum.

"The creative sector - including architecture - is a vital contributor to the UK economy," said RIBA president Angela Brady. "The teaching of creative subjects must be maintained to retain our creative assets and nurture future talent. However we are still concerned at the league table measures which do not include creative subjects, we will continue to lobby the Government to ensure creative subjects are not undermined."

D&AD president Neville Brody previously described the government's plans to "demolish and smash" creative education as "insanity" and told Dezeen: "The creative industries need high-quality creative graduates. If we're not getting the graduates, we’re not going to sustain the industry."

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Photograph is by Mark Burton.

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News: the University of Minnesota has launched a new programme that could halve the time it takes for students to gain a licence to practise architecture in the United States.

With a stronger emphasis on professional practice, the Masters of Science in Architecture - Research Practices (MS-RP) course will fast-track students towards taking the licencing exam as part of the curriculum, around seven or eight years after graduating from high school. This is around half time taken by the average student, who completes the exam 14.5 years after graduating from high school according to a report released in June 2012.

The inaugural report from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, NCARB by the Numbers 2012, found that on average students spend eight and a half years studying and an additional six years completing an internship before qualifying as an architect. This is significantly greater than countries like the UK or Germany, where the whole process typically takes around seven to eight years.

Discussing why it takes many students so long, course director Renée Cheng told Dezeen that it can be difficult to gain relevant experience from internships in practice after studying: "Those that we know of who get delayed are sometimes due to the economy and because the types of experience they getting are not aligning with the IDP (Intern Development Programme) areas needed."

The School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota's College of Design has taken advantage of a recent change by NCARB that allows students to begin accruing IDP hours as soon as they beginning studying architecture, whether they begin by taking a Bachelor of Science in Architecture straight out of high school or if they start at post-graduate level. On the MS-RP course students will take part in research projects for architecture firms and non-profit organisations in addition to their taught classes, and will be paid for their work.

Above: concept diagram from the University of Minnesota's College of Design

"During the program, we have calculated workload hours and study time is counted in," said Cheng. "We talked with some of our current students who have outside work and in some cases this program is less than what they are doing now. It is intense, probably on the order of 55-60 hours per week all included, but since several of the areas are strongly intertwined the overlap of topics should make it feel more coherent."

Within this framework, students completing the MS-RP course are expected to have earned the full 930 5600 hours and 17 core experience areas of IDP credit required to allow them to take the final licencing exam.

The course directors explain: "We believe that by offering this model, we nudge the profession towards true culture change, one that expects all our students can be licenced upon graduation, regardless of their final career choices. This change extends to architectural firms and the building industry, transforming the culture to one of sharing knowledge in the effort to collaboratively tackle the serious 'wicked problems' affecting the built environment."

The university will begin accepting applications to the course this spring and expects to take on between four and eight students in the autumn semester. "Later numbers may grow to between eight and twelve but it may never be large enough on its own to make the change we aspire to, so the partnership with other schools and firms is essential to future growth," added Cheng.

The news follows recent debate over plans for the UK education system to remove design and other creative subjects from the core school curriculum.

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Photograph of architectural equipment from Shutterstock.

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News: Design Academy Eindhoven is looking for a creative director following a period of turmoil that has seen the resignation of the heads of the three masters courses, their subsequent return to the school and the departure of school's chair.

The school has been without a creative head since September 2009, when fashion designer Alexander van Slobbe quit just nine months after being appointed as successor to trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.

Edelkoort, who was chair of the school but also set its creative direction, stepped down in 2008 after ten years at the school. Edelkoort stepped into the row about the school's direction this summer, publishing a letter criticising the leadership of Annemieke Eggenkamp, who succeeded Edelkoort as chair.

"I have had to watch how the school and the system have been dismantled, all things that made the Design Academy the design academy were closed or changed one by one, mercilessly and ruthlessly," Edelkoort wrote.

This July the three heads of the masters courses resigned in unison, claiming management decisions at the school were "compromising the quality of education". At the time Jan Boelen, head of the social design masters course, said: "the Design Academy [is] in great need of an artistic director".

The three later returned after extracting concessions from the school but continued to press for the appointment of a creative director.

In August, chair Annemieke Eggenkamp announced she would be standing down.

The academy today posted a recruitment advert for a creative director who would be "accountable for the vision, strategy and artistical direction of the Design Academy Eindhoven".

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Image is from Radio Nederland Wereldomroep.

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News: the director of the UK’s Olympic cultural programme has called on designers to help fight government proposals to remove creative subjects from the curriculum.

Ruth Mackenzie, director of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, said people in the creative industries were “right to be worried” about the proposals and urged them to comment on the plans before consultation closes on Monday.

“We need now to respond to the consultation,” said Mackenzie at the In Progress conference at the Barbican in London today. “Please this weekend, if you worry that teachers will not have time to offer creativity and the rigour of arts education in the future, go to www.baccforthefuture.com and explain why it’s important that every child gets a chance to grow their talents in school time.”

She added: “It’s for us to show ourselves and the world what our creative industries can be.”

Government plans to exclude creative subjects from the proposed new EBacc qualification have caused alarm in the creative industries. Yesterday Jonathan Ive and Stella McCartney became the highest-profile designers to add their voices to the campaign against the proposals.

The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad was the largest cultural event in the history of the Olympics and was designed to showcase the UK’s creative talents. The Olympiad involved over 2,500 projects, which were attended by a total of 16 million people and culminated in the London 2012 Festival.

In Progress is a one-day creative conference organised by It’s Nice That. See our competition for a chance to win a copy of the It's Nice That Annual.

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