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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I apologise to the House because this is the first time I have addressed it on the Education and Inspections Bill. Noble Lords who were in the Chamber earlier will realise that I do so with a particular interest in the new science syllabus, Twenty First Century Science. I have taken the Times for all my adult life, although I try to read other papers as well. I think some of its front-page headlines have become pretty silly, but when I read its headline on Wednesday, 11 October—““Science elite rejects new GCSE as ‘fit for the pub’””—I exploded. I thought of cancelling my subscription, but my wife said she enjoys other parts of the newspaper. Twenty First Century Science has been a long time in gestation. It fits admirably with the chapter about science education in the report of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Science and Society. I chaired the sub-committee, and we did not initially intend to have a chapter about education. However, we received so much evidence from all sides that much of the problem of the alienation of the public from science starts in the schools that we decided that we needed to address the subject as part of our wider study. I am very glad we did, because the people who devised this new syllabus—they were working independently from us—told me very early on that they applauded us for addressing the subject. We agreed that, as the new syllabus emerged, it would closely reflect the philosophy of the Select Committee. My noble friend Lady Buscombe—who let me know five minutes before Questions that she does not agree me on this—praised Sir Richard Sykes for his view. I have enormous respect for Sir Richard, and I had two long meetings with him in the past week. In the end, he agreed that we are fundamentally trying to achieve the same objective. However, not for the first time,Sir Richard is a bit out on a limb. When the Times reported that the science elite opposes this syllabus, it seemed to ignore that the Royal Society—its former president, the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, took part in Questions—the Institute of Physics, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Institute of Biology and the British Association for the Advancement of Science have all roundly supported the new syllabus as a valuable step in the right direction. My noble friend suggested to me that the new syllabus fails because it does not meet the need for pupils to study the three sciences separately. I must say to my noble friend, with the greatest of respect—as they sometimes say in the courts—she has misdirected herself. I have a note from the Nuffield Foundation, which with the University of York has been the main intellectual powerhouse behind the new syllabus. It states clearly: "““Science education in schools has two jobs to do: to provide a worthwhile education for all preparing them for adult and working life””," and, "““to lay the foundations for more advanced study in science””." It goes on: "““Twenty First Century Science does both in ways that is attracting international interest—not least because the approach is based on a ten year programme of research and development backed up with trials and evaluation””." Those promoting the syllabus have engaged the scientific community right from the start—names that are nationally known and others who are specialists in their special subject and may not be so well known. They have been a source—