Innovation education in NSW design and technology curriculum

Do technology teachers in secondary schools and academic stakeholders share the national vision of knowledge and innovation when implementing Design and Technology curricula? Directions for an innovation climate have been endorsed by the federal government, and demanded by various industry groups, since 1996. This paper explores the extent to which education providers of secondary schooling have embraced the call for teaching and developing innovation capacities through technology curriculum. The Australian Science, Technology and Engineering Council (ASTEC) in 1996 underpinned “foresight” as an essential dimension to our thinking which attempts to capture the dynamics of change and the need to incorporate “technacy” in primary and secondary school and teaching practices for fostering innovation capacities among students. Various national reports have since added to this agenda including the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) report ‘Australia’s Teachers: Australia’s Future: Advancing Innovation, Science, Technology and Mathematics’ and the posting by DEST signalling Australia’s newest national research priority to foster the uptake of innovation in human capital. There is a need to analyse and understand whether there is a capacity for NSW schools to deliver on the above agenda given historical difficulties within the State’s system to embrace new pedagogy in the field of technology education and associated teacher capital.