The number of Swedish students applying to technical education is decreasing, and this fact will lead to a severe shortage of engineers in a just a decade. As an example, the candidates applying to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) has reduced by 30 % the last couple of years. Furthermore, the ROSE report clearly describes young people’s lack of interest in science and technology in the industrialised world in sharp contrast to the situation in the developing countries.

Why is the interest for technical education decreasing? What makes other fields of education more popular? What image of technology does the compulsory school deliver?

Technology was introduced as a mandatory subject in Swedish compulsory school in 1980 and got its own syllabus when the current national curriculum was introduced in 1994. One of the goals of the Swedish compulsory school is to develop an interest for technology as well as capability and judgement in handling technical issues.

In what way does the Swedish compulsory school work with this goal? Is the school successful in making pupils interested? What are the pupils’ opinions?

Each school can decide when and how the pupils get technology education, but every pupil is expected and entitled to reach the national goals.

To get an overall picture of the technology subject questions will be investigated as parts of tree different Ph.D. projects.

• How do we actually know that pupils learn what they are entitled to?
• How is the technology syllabus interpreted, in theory and practice?
• Does the technology subject really develop an interest for technology and does it inspire to further technical studies? 

In order to find out if pupils reach the national goals in technology, a questionnaire is launched in schools all over Sweden. The interpretation of the syllabus will be studied through observations comparing teaching practice with the local planning of the technology subject. To get answers, whether the technology subject has any impact on the interest and the choice of further studies, interviews are made among students and teachers in compulsory school as well as in upper secondary school.

The findings of the cooperating projects will together contribute with answers about the state of the technology education in the Swedish compulsory school system, and how the subject could be developed in the future.