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Science Teaching

My Lords, I am very grateful to have the opportunity provided by the noble Lord, Lord Broers, to debate this matter. I immediately echo what he said at the end of his speech, which was picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, on the importance of breadth—for scientists, who absolutely need to be able to communicate these days, whether they are going on to be pure scientists or, most particularly, if they are going on to do other things in life; and for those who are not centrally scientists who need to understand what science is about because it is such a large part of society today. That would help us to be less plagued by the panics and misunderstandings which populate our newspapers. In both those areas universities have a great role to play, although I very much hope that it will be done by encouraging some universities to go down what might be called the American route of providing much broader degrees, or at least broadening out what they offer at the moment rather than compulsion or moving from one pattern to another. I think that students, by and large, can choose. If Oxbridge wants to remain in the15th century, it is entitled to do so, as it has done for instance in German, which is why those who really want to study that language go somewhere else. I want to use my time today to draw out the case that the report makes for the reform of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The QCA is centralised, controlling and stultifying. Everything goes through it. It is supposed to be the source of all innovation; all change has to be approved by it and all processes are minutely detailed by it. As a result, things happen immensely slowly, but when they do happen they happen in a sudden, unresearched, unthought-out rush. As we are seeing in the new science GCSE—although I approve of it in many ways—it is not happening in a scientific way. These things ought to be tried out properly, they ought to be evaluated and they ought to spread gradually. Changes ought to be taken up by schools as schools are ready to take them up, as would happen in a more organic environment. Because the thing is so centralised, we are finding particular unitary views taking hold. The consultation on the new key stage 3 curriculum, for instance, only mentions ““knowledge”” twice, and then in very subsidiary contexts. We have moved from a curriculum that is entirely fact-based to one that is going to be entirely fact-free. That degree of prescription is entirely inappropriate. The QCA—I have it in writing—seems to believe that it is sole arbiter of these things and that politicians, in particular, should keep out. The report details several problems that this has created for science teaching. There is the divorce of vocational and practical education from the academic mainstream. Science is being drained of practical content. There has been a failure to produce any form of vocational science education other than the elephantine diplomas, which are doomed to failure. What reputable institution is going to put a bright kid into something that takes up six GCSEs and deprives them of all the other opportunities that they might have at that stage? That is focusing a child not just at age 16 or at university, but at age 14. There is the lack of responsiveness of the QCA to what is happening elsewhere, and the narrowness of the testing regime, which is mentioned in this report. There is the dogin the manger attitude to IGCSE, which is extraordinary. The QCA awards points for cake decorating at GCSE, but it will not acknowledge the IGCSE, which is used by some of the best schools; except of course that it has had to use IGCSE maths in compiling the level 2 maths totals that have crept into the performance tables this year. So it is there and it is not there, and it is not there entirely because of the amour propre of the QCA. It did not invent it, and it does not control it, and therefore it should not be allowed to count. We have a sick, bloated agency and we need to do something to reform it. We need a QCA for quality control and for providing information to the rest of us, including teachers, about what qualifications are about, which the QCA does not do at the moment, because they are all its own qualifications so it is not a source of independent information on what is available. We need it for facilitating innovation, which ought to flow from schools. It does in a small way flow from independent schools; Bedales has its own independent GCSEs, which are accepted by universities. There is a capability to innovate at that level. LEAs can innovate too. There is a great project, which is now half way through, in West Dunbartonshire on literacy, which is entirely focused, invented and supported at the LEA level. There is a great focus there. Being beyond the reach of the QCA, it is able to do it, and we should import that into England. Exam boards can innovate too. The Cambridge board is bringing forward the alternative A-level; the Cambridge Pre-U. That is happening for academic kids, but what about the kids who want a vocational education? Absolutely nothing. There is no variety there and there is nothing on offer. We ought to have a scientifically based system where innovation occurs everywhere, so that there is a great bubbling up of ideas that are then evolved and tested locally, and if well proved they can be more widely accepted. That would present us with a range of ideas about how to engage children, particularly in science, and how to bring them forward into the love of learning and love of science that we all hope to see. Unless we free up the QCA, we are going to be stuck where we were, because change will be immensely slow, and when it comes it will not work.