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    Dyson answers the call to fill a vacuum in British life
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    I gather they look at the sociology of science, that’s a pity.” He wants to bring back design and technology classes. "Margaret Thatcher was a scientist, she invented raspberry ripple and made design and technology compulsory in schools. Jacqui Smith [the former schools minister] made it not compulsory. Somehow we have driven everything that’s creative and risky out of our school system so it becomes about people learning things from facts rather than experimenting." The Government’s obsession with health and safety has been a disaster for science education, he believes. Full Article at Times Online
    Margaret Thatcher was a scientist, she invented raspberry ripple and made design and technology compulsory in schools. Jacqui Smith [the former schools minister] made it not compulsory. Somehow we have driven everything that’s creative and risky out of our school system so it becomes about people learning things from facts rather than experimenting.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
All quotes from:
Dyson answers the call to fill a vacuum in British life
  1. There are some easy things to do. At the moment we train a huge number of foreign students in science and engineering but they all have to go home after their doctorate. That is mad. America hangs on to those people. We should let them stay indefinitely.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  2. My brother had gone off to read classics at Cambridge, my father and my grandfather had done classics at Cambridge, so I decided to go to art school. There I discovered there was a thing called design.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  3. You need a little bit of danger — tool kits and Bunsen burners. Our generation survived. A saw, a chisel and a file used properly are not dangerous. Schools need more workshops.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  4. The British love the idea of mad inventors — think of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Tomorrow’s World — but they don’t think of doing it themselves. Isambard Brunel was voted the second-favourite Briton. The success of Top Gear is interesting.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  5. I kept going because I love inventing, I’ve never been unhappy doing it. But we got deeper and deeper into debt — it got into the millions. Eventually the vacuum cleaner became successful. I was 49 before that happened.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  6. They talked about science a lot but I don’t think they did many concrete actions. They dithered over nuclear power and coal-powered fire stations, they dithered over big transport schemes . , . we need to be much more positive and go out and do things.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  7. I am not a great fan of joint science GCSEs. I gather they look at the sociology of science, that’s a pity.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  8. A lot of people who work in industry could spend the last few years of their career in schools inspiring children. You could give them tax breaks by allowing them to pay lower tax on their pension.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago
  9. America files 19 times more patents than us, South Korea seven times more, China nine times more — we have stopped inventing things. Pharmaceutical companies are almost the only ones left.
    SOURCE: Times Online 2 months ago

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