Design education seems to be lacking in schools I've been to (Arabia and India.) To reduce the lack of awareness of design and its role in the socio-economic environment, I've been assessing ways to increase the awareness of interaction design and related design fields among the general public. Schooling students, who would be tommorrow's general public, about design is the most likely to be effective in establishing design as a part of everyday life and in increasing the value and/or the economy of goods and services. I've used a question and answer approach (that can be seen below) for figuring out the best approach to introducing design to the general public.

When would be the best time to start educating students about  design related subject matter?

Based on the responses from those I've introduced interaction design to, I gather that secondary school is the best place to start educating students about design.  Design as in the technical definition of design where design is the plan for the creation of a product or system rather than the widely perceived definition of design as defining the visual appearance of an artifact.

While I haven't had any real conversation about design to somone young enough to be in an elementary school, I get the impression that they would be able to grasps the basics of what design is although they may not have the aptitude to learn how to design a solution to a problem.

Persons who have finished their secondary education (as well as persons who have finished their undergraduate and later studies) without a prior introduction to design, tend to initially take longer to learn about design or rather re-learn their current perception of design as solely art production instead of design as a planning process to create a product or service.

Secondary school students that I've spoken to seem to not only be willing to learn about what design is, they tend to have the level of cognitive development required to learn how to solve design problem using design methodologies if they haven't already been able to solve the problem without formal design training. The ability to solve design problems without formal training in design methodologies is what I continuously refer to as an 'innate ability to design.'

When would be the best time to introduce students to design?

While secondary school students are able to start learning how to design, initial introduction of students to design and it's professional fields as career choices at the secondary school level has multiple drawbacks.

Quite a few schools (especially private schools whose primarily selling point are the high grades their students receive) tend to offer a very streamlined curriculum for secondary schools. Such school who offer limited curriculums select their offered curriculum based on the availabilty of teachers who have the relevant experience in the available subject matters to ensure higher grades. In situations where design oriented lecturers are not locally available, there would be a large number of secondary school students who would not have an opportunity to be introduced to what design is and would not pursue a design oriented occupation.

The lack of awareness (among school students entering or selecting a secondary school) about opportunities in design industries would also reduce demand for design related courses and thereby reduce the likelihood of secondary schools offering design related courses due to low demand for them.

Introducing students to design would therefore be best started at the elementary level so that students (and parents who track what their children learn) would be aware about what design is and the jobs available to those who select to join the design field. Students who have had a proper introduction to design would be better informed on the career path they wish to take and would select secondary schools that offer a curriculum that offers design.

How would design be introduced at the elementary school level?

Design as a part of art instantly springs up as one of the first subjects to bundle design with. However, design does not only apply to art.

When art and design are related to a car's production, art would be a part of planning the appearance of the car while design would be involve planning the car in its entirety (appearance, engines, steering systems, etc.) as well as the machinery involved in producing the car rather than just the car's appearance.

I would advocate the idea of introducing design at the elementary level as a part of multiple subjects that make use of design (art, sciences, etc..)

Design education at the secondary school level:

At the secondary level, a general design course (rather than a course specific to industrial design, interface design, fashion design, visual communication, etc) could be taken as an elective option. While not every school system may have access to capable design oriented instructors, students could be offered self study courses and/or be offered an online option where students use an internet enabled lab dedicated to students who elect for a self study design course.

As a footnote, I find compulsory attendance for online courses in an internet enabled lab to be counter productive to progressing a student's education especially when the student's have been assigned a lecturer who has not had formal training in the subject matter.

Bibliography:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_art
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design
• http://johnnyholland.org/
• http://www.ixda.org/