Oxford University Press recently released a book by IEEE Life Fellow, John Heywood, entitled In Search of Technological Excellence: Education and Engineering in Post-War Britain. The book highlights what three key British committees—Percy (1945), Fielden (1963), and Finniston (1980)—actually achieved in secondary and higher technological education. These committees worked over many years to revise the curriculum to better meet industry needs.
The core themes are curriculum change, the colleges of advanced technology, theory versus practice, engineering science versus engineering design, the supply, demand, and utilization of qualified manpower, the structure of sandwich courses, and the integration of academic study with work experience, engineers as managers, social class and occupational and social status, and engineering in schools.
The book is by John Heywood, Professorial Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin. He is one of a small group of people in the US and the UK who pioneered research on engineering education, both in K-12 schools and in higher education. Professor Heywood was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 2016 in recognition of contributions to engineering education research and the development of engineering education as a field of scientific inquiry. Professor Heywood has been a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) since 1962, and he is also a Life Fellow of the ASEE.
