Partly because we educate and train too many of our young people for disciplines that have no jobs; and middle class politicians and public sector administrators grossly undervalue technical skills.
That's long been the case. The Finnisten Report in 1980 which aimed to raise the status of engineering had unintended consequences when it made the recommendation that Chartered Engineers had to have a degree and its subsequent implemention by the engineering institutions meant that a large tranche of engineers who were far more competent than a lot of their degree wielding peers found themselves excluded from chartered status.
Middle class politicians and public sector administrators tend to have degrees in the social sciences and humanities and have little understanding and/or empathy for science/mathematical/technical skills. Lord Sainsbury was a notable exception, he created the Gatsby Foundation and one of its six areas of focus was promoting Science and Technology in schools. It had some impact in schools that employed enthusiastic heads of department but the impact might well have been greater had headteachers embraced the initiatives.
Sheffield Hallam University made a major contribution to Science Education with its Pupil Researcher initiative but once again it was enthusiastic science teachers who were the driving force. A retrograde step was taken with the introduction of the last version of the science curriculum which allowed youngsters to obtain a science qualification without any real grasp of any science.
The new decentralised model of teacher training will do little to improve the status of science and maths trainee teachers will have little opportunity to meet each other and exchange ideas. Technology is still regarded as a subject more suited to the less able and unruly in many schools. The only driving force to increase the numbers of students in maths and science is the one that has no currency in the real world and is used to rank order schools - The English Baccalaureate. It is however at the expense of quality.
What would really get things going is a national initiative with legislation and a single administrative body behind it and a fair degree of clout to force all schools to embrace STEM, Science Technology and Mathematics education and support them with suitably funded resources. The current pot pourri of science institutions, charitable trusts, professional bodies, university schools of Science Education need to co-ordinate their efforts to avoid duplication of initiatives and make sure that every school has a senior member of staff with a STEM degree charged with ensuring that his/her school it taking advantage of the opportunities that exist to enhance the scientific and technological leteracies and capabilities of every child.
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