The report in the paper that great minds believe that Maths should be a compulsory subject up to the age of 16 prompts another thought.
Lottery money is distributed for Heritage, Arts, Awards for All and Big Lottery projects. Why do we not have a Science and Technology Lottery Fund? Nesta is the nearest we have to it but that is not targeted at the mass market.
Why not a Science and Technology Lottery Fund giving money for the advancement of these subjects? Then those of us that deal with design technology could help support this initiative. And we mean real design in the sense of making real thought-through innovations and not just things that look pretty.
Projects would have to have real technical or scientific application and/or involve learning. It would help to fund the many science centres which struggle for funding and it would meet the ambitions of the great minds to keep a knowledge and understanding of maths, physics, chemistry, biology ... alive above basic levels.
The recent launch of the boat in the Boat Project was all about the look of its hull. No one mentioned the technology behind the creation of the boat, its hydro-dynamic shape, its materials or its performance specification (no one mentioned what is going to happen to it now that it has been built at vast expense either, but that is another story).
We cannot think that Germany's economic miracle was founded on the back of a contemporary art programme.
