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Science Teaching

My Lords, I, too, welcome the committee’s hard-hitting and cogent report. The Government’s advertising campaign some years ago, ““Thank a Teacher””, resonated with many of us who went into science, because we were lucky with our teachers. It is worrying that now, when opportunities should be much greater, there may be fewer good science teachers than there were in the 1960s. The committee made many timely recommendations, but it was right to prioritise the need for teachers. Last year’s UCAS figures showed a rise in applications for university courses in physics, chemistry and maths. They were green shoots that, perhaps, signalled that the educational initiatives of recent years were starting to pay off; but overall enrolments are still too low. A downward spiral in these core subjects would bode ill for the goal of achieving a high-value-added economy. Indeed, we might end up being outclassed by nations such as India and Korea in frontier technology and importing our teachers from those countries. That would be a humiliating comedown, as well as an economic calamity. To meet the Government’s Next Steps target of increasing the percentage of secondary science teachers who are qualified to teach physics, other measures are needed. Biology teachers can be given extra expertise in physics; mature professionals—engineers or scientists—can move into teaching; and more can be done to encourage scientists based in universities to spend time in schools as well. Young children are easy to enthuse about science—dinosaurs and space travel are perennially fascinating—but this enthusiasm is not sustained. Under our present system, those who are turned off science and drop it at age 16 thereby foreclose their option of pursuing science at university. That is one reason, but only one of many, why it is regrettable that the Government did not support the broadening of the 16 to 19 curriculum proposed by Tomlinson. During their school careers, young people tend particularly to lose interest in chemistry and physics, as my noble friend Lord Oxburgh reminded us. This is not a uniquely British trend; it is the same in Japan, the US and western Europe. There are many reasons for it but one, I think, is that the immense sophistication of the technology that pervades young people’s lives is actually a barrier. Inquisitive children in the mid-20th century could take apart a clock, a radio set or a motorbike, figure out how it worked and even put it together again. That is not so with the marvellous artefacts that pervade their lives today—mobile phones, iPods and the rest. It is hard to take them to bits. If you do, you will find few clues to their arcane mechanisms. They are ““black boxes””—pure magic to most people. Young people need hands-on reality, as well as virtual reality. They need laboratory work, field trips and the like. The Royal Society welcomes the curricular reforms for key stage 3, although it would, for several reasons, prefer them to be piloted locally before rolling them out nationwide. The Minister may sometimes feel that the input from the scientific community is sub-optimum and not as helpful as it might be because it is rather discordant. I think he has grounds for feeling that on occasions. The Government have been confronted by a bewildering variety of advice on the science curriculum, which is not always concordant, and it comes from literally hundreds of professional bodies and learned societies. However, key players in the science education communities have recently come together in a new partnership, with the acronym SCORE, under Sir Alan Wilson’s chairmanship. This consortium should help to generate a consensus and ensure a more effective interface between the ministry and the scientists. But, even if supremely excellent education is in place, scientific careers will not continue to attract talent unless young people have a positive perception of science as a profession. Today’s scientists have an unduly low profile. Most people can at least recall the names of great scientists of the past; they can name dead engineers, too, from Brunel to Barnes Wallace. But those still living deserve wider acclaim. There seems no reason why our top scientists and engineers should not at least have the profile of our leading architects and be seen as exemplars for the young. The young are not immune to financial incentives, but they are idealistic too. As my noble friendLord Oxburgh said, supplying the entire world with clean, low-carbon energy is an immense long-term challenge. Earth’s optimum stewardship and a proper sharing of the benefits of science between all nations are goals to inspire the young, and they are goals where, in our own interest, the UK should seize the chance to play a pivotal role. Science education is vital for tomorrow’s scientists and engineers, but it is important for everyone. All today’s young people will live in a world empowered by ever more elaborate technology, but they will also be more vulnerable to its failures and misuse. There will be ever more political and ethical choices with scientific dimensions. For informed public debate, everyone needs a feel for science. That is why the Royal Society supports the new range of GCSEs. Finally, science is part of our culture. The vision of nature offered by Darwin and modern cosmology is inspiring—the chain of complexity leading from some genesis event to stars, planets, biospheres and human brains. Those who cannot marvel at that are culturally deprived. In summary, science education is vital to everyone, but it must continue to attract a good share of the talented young. The system—be it academia, public service or private industry—must offer challenging opportunities. For all those reasons, the debate is timely and we should welcome the committee’s report.