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Science Teaching

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, on two scores: first, for introducing this timely debate; and, secondly—I speak as a member of the Science and Technology Committee—for being an excellent committee chair and for taking us through this extremely important topic and helping us to produce a very good report. The importance of the number of graduates in science and technology has been emphasised throughout the debate. It is worth bringing to the attention of the House the CBI’s comment. It reckons that, over the next decade, the number of science, engineering and technology graduates needs to more than double, from 45,000 to 95,000. The key question that we have been looking at today is why this is not happening. Why is it that, over the past decade, when there has been a 10 per cent increase in the number of A-level entries as a whole, we have seen a fall in the number of entries in chemistry of 6 per cent, in physics of a massive 34 per cent and in maths and further maths of 13 per cent? I should like to pick up the whole point about mathematics. Most of the statistics—this is true of our report, too—date back only to the mid-1990s, but, in the 1980s, we had many more A-level students in science and mathematics. In 1989, 64,000 students took A-level maths at age 17; by 1997, the figure had fallen to 56,000; by 2002, it had fallen to 44,000. Although it has risen slightly, to 50,000, there is still a crisis in mathematics. Like the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, I will quote from Adrian Smith’s report on mathematics. In his introductory letter to the Minister, he says: "““Mathematics is of central importance to modern society. It provides the language and analytical tools underpinning much of our scientific and industrial research and development””." There is a crisis in mathematics. Perhaps we have turned the corner—let us hope that we have—but it is vital that we remember that. Another key issue in our report was to point out the vicious circle. If we do not have enough graduates, we do not have enough people going into teaching. The fewer graduate specialists who go into teaching, the more students are taught by non-specialists. We know from all the survey evidence that, the more students there are who are taught by non-specialists, the more students there are who drop out of those subjects—they do not take them at GCSE or through to A-level. The fewer A-level students we have, the fewer university entrants we have, and the few university entrants we have, the fewer graduates we have. It is a vicious circle. The committee looked at how we break that circle. We have given various answers, which have been touched on around the House today. First, there is the question of making science more interesting and enthusing young people. We have talked about the new GCSE syllabus in 21st-century science. Yes, good, but we still have to see whether it really provides a good grounding from which to take A-level. We know that the jump between taking dual sciences and A-level was extremely difficult, and questions are now being raised about the alignment of key stage 3 with 21st-century science and the new A-level syllabus that is being proposed and perhaps pushed much too fast. There are real questions here, and we need to look at this issue. The question of enthusing people about practical science is a big issue. Careers are another. Here I pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, that it is all very well having websites and careers teachers—10 per cent of our careers advisers are science specialists—but the students we need to get to are those who are aged 11, 12 and 13. That is when we can enthuse them and when we need to grab them, just as in the 1960s they were grabbed by the Sputniks, which led to a tremendous burgeoning of interest in science. Then there is the question of widening A-levels. We on these Benches echo the thoughts of the noble Lords, Lord Broers and Lord Dearing, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill: we should look at a much broader syllabus for 16, 17 and 18 year-olds in our schools. We are unique in the world in specialising narrowly in three subjects. The Government have answered the pleas from the committee by saying, ““Well, we’ve got AS-level””, but we all know that AS has not worked to broaden the curriculum. It is used as a sifting mechanism for taking A-levels. We regret enormously that the Government did not rise to the challenge of Tomlinson. Instead what we have are these hybrid diplomas. They may work out well; I hope they do. But the committee has received a very pessimistic letter from the Royal Academy of Engineering, saying that it has put so much into making these new diplomas viable and feasible, yet it is quite clear in the minds of many of those setting the syllabuses for A-levels and so forth that the bright students will not touch diplomas,and therefore the binary divide will be written big within them. It is important that we look again at this subject. Seventy subjects can be studied at A-level. Do we not have too many A-levels? There is a very real problem of non-comparability. All right, it is a hoary subject, and the Minister does not accept that there is discrepancy in grades. However, the evidence we had from the University of Durham was compelling. The Government need to look at this. A move to much broader-based sixth-form studies would, to some extent, solve the problem in itself. Just as the old Higher School Certificate required a range of subjects, so the IB requires that the student carries on with science, maths and languages to age 18. That inevitably narrows down the fields of study. The other side of the coin is that, if we are introducing all these new diplomas, perhaps they ought to cover some of the more practical A-level subjects. I do not want to spend any time on buildings; they have been touched on. There are three questionsfor the Minister to answer, however. First, what happened to the £200 million we were promisedin 2005? There is no answer to that in the report. Secondly, why is it that with the Building Schools for the Future programme we are still not getting laboratories that are fit for purpose? That is appalling and needs to be explained. Thirdly, do the Government recognise that it is all very well saying that every school will have about £100,000 to spend on capital works at its own discretion, but how can you persuade heads to spend money on science labs when you have falling numbers taking A-level science? That has been a very real problem. Many noble Lords have said that the key issue is the teachers, and there is no doubt that that is the case. Some 25 per cent of schools have no specialist physics teachers; only 70 per cent of maths teachers are maths specialists. Very large numbers are being taught maths and science by non-specialist teachers. The Government’s answer is targets for the recruitment of teachers, but you have to be careful about the figures used. In November, the Prime Minister answered a question about this in the other place, boasting that 7,500 new science teachers had been hired in 2005, 70 per cent more than in 1999-2000. But that figure was for trainee recruits to the science, engineering, mathematics and technology group, which includes business studies, textiles and graphics. The numbers recruited to physics, chemistry and biology were in fact 977, 568 and 383—about 2,000 recruits to science. There were also about3,000 recruits to mathematics. Moreover, only 75 per cent of recruits end up in the classroom—25 per cent fall out in the process. Shockingly, two out of every five new teachers in the state sector drop out in the first five years. Recruitment and retention are crucial. What are the issues that would help? The Government have rejected all notions of special pay rates for those teaching subjects in which there is a shortage. They should look to the flexibility that exists; headsshould be encouraged to use maximum flexibility. The Government dismissed golden hellos and writing off student debt much too summarily. There is clear evidence, as 76 out of 226 students followed up in the evaluation said that paying off their top-up fees had made a difference. I must finish, as I was supposed to take only eight minutes, and I have taken 11. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, again, and repeat that this subject is vital.