The curse of the course

Faced with major surgery, you'd expect each member of the clinical team to know what their jobs were and to have done similar operations before. You would not expect the anaesthetist to be unaware of what the surgeon planned to do.

It's an extreme example, but it makes the point. If we don't allow doctors to practise without a good general grounding in every aspect of medicine, why do we let our construction professionals go out into the industry with such narrow experience of the overall marketplace in which they will be working?

The current education system for construction in this country doesn't fully prepare students for the real-life, commercial environment. Nor does it provide enough exposure to the various sectors of the industry, all of which are vital to the overall construction process.

For example, as a newly qualified architect starting out in practice, I find initial discussions with project partners from different sectors of the industry alarmingly difficult, as the differences between them are exposed. Far from aiding integration, narrow courses of professional training often leave graduates isolated within their discipline and unsure how to work effectively with others to deliver a building.

Another problem is the belief of some clients and architects that they should design buildings in isolation from the rest of the project team, involving other professionals and consultants only later down the line. Surely the whole team should be encouraged to discuss and agree common goals and aspirations at the outset of a project. That would lead to a robust design concept, which, in turn, would enable non-adversarial ways of working. Our current education system doesn't instil this either.

Discussions between project partners from different industry sectors can be alarmingly difficult

What I would like to see, and what the Design Build Foundation Graduate Board is lobbying for, is a common training element in all construction courses – a core industry module promoting integration and collaboration between supply chain partners.

Why shouldn't an architect visit a construction site regularly during their degree and why shouldn't a manufacturer or engineer spend some time in a design studio as part of their training? It would increase tolerance and tone down the adversarial practices that still blight our industry.

The DBF Graduate Board is made up of nine young professionals from different sectors of the industry. It currently includes architects, quantity surveyors, an environmental engineer, a design manager, a solicitor, a market researcher and a project manager.

Our mission is to instil the spirit of collaboration within the new generation, creating a movement for change. We are doing this by empowering young people already in the industry to make changes themselves and by lobbying educational establishments to put more emphasis on integration.