It Must be Pre-Vocational
That is, it must teach skills which will be useful in the wider world of work but that is not to say that it must be specifically vocational or involve training for specific occupations.

It Must be General
That is, it must provide the basic competences needed for, and an understanding and appreciation of, technological activity in general.

Technology should be a purposeful activity involving the pursuit of a task to some form of resolution that results in improvement for someone in the made world. It is a study which is essentially procedural and which uses knowledge and skills as resources for action rather than regarding them as ends in themselves.

Technology is always purposeful (i.e. deployed in response to perceived needs and opportunities, as opposed to being undertaken for its own sake), takes place within a context of specific constraints (e.g. deadlines, cash limits, ergonomic and environmental requirements as opposed to unrestrained blue-sky research), and depends upon value judgements at almost every stage.

Technology education should involve three complementary elements:

Technological Capability
That is, the capability to engage in the active processes of technology, namely:

• recognising needs and opportunities for technological solutions
  
• designing, making, innovating, manufacturing, selling, commissioning, maintaining and using the products of technology
  
• the acquisition and application of knowledge, understanding and skill
  
• the testing and evaluating of technological products
  

• the practical skills and techniques
  
• the practical and theoretical knowledge and understanding of materials, components and devices
  
• the intellectual skills needed for identifying needs, analysing problems, developing solutions and evaluating outcomes
  
• the ability to communicate ideas orally and graphically, as well as by using Information Technology
  
• the personal qualities of determination, imagination, cooperation, flexibility and sensitivity needed to engage effectively in technological activities