Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2015
Unlike my three Labour colleagues in front of me, each of whom is a distinguished scientist or engineer, I gave up science at 15 and have spent the past 50 years of my life regretting it. I have tried to remedy that in various ways, but I am certainly passionate about science and ensuring that more people continue to study and enjoy science. The economic arguments have been well articulated by all the front-bench speakers, but if we get science right in school it surely must be intrinsically interesting and endlessly fascinating for pupils. I refer to pupils because of course science teaching should start from a very early age.
Certain worrying features about science teaching have already been highlighted in the debate. First, the issue of the number of science teachers, particularly in computer science and physics, has been well rehearsed. Secondly, there is a problem in relation to the practice of science. Clearly, that is an area that is potentially very attractive to young people because it allows them to be more hands-on with science. However, one of the main features of the learned societies group’s report was its reference to schools’ reliance on external funding for practical work in science, which is also referred to in the Labour amendment. For example, 82 per cent of secondary schools said that they did not have sufficient resources for “equipment and consumables” for practical work, which is a very serious problem. I noticed that Professor Sally Brown highlighted that point at a meeting three weeks or so ago of the Education and Culture Committee.
There has been a bit of disagreement about the number of students taking science subjects, but Iain Gray made an important point about that earlier. Again, I noticed that the point was referred to at the meeting of the Education and Culture Committee that I have mentioned. I will not read out the whole quote, but Dr Beveridge said at the meeting:
“The figures that give us concern are those for the new curriculum for excellence courses, which have only reached S4 level in schools. Having looked at those figures ... we are concerned that we are seeing decreases in all the sciences.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee; 27 January 2015; c 12.]
Clearly, a watching eye must be kept on that, because it would be an issue of enormous concern if an unintended consequence of the curriculum for excellence was that fewer people studied STEM subjects.
What do we do about the current situation? Having more partnerships with colleges has not come up in the debate, but it is an important area that could be explored. Central to the motion, and something we support in our amendment, is the idea of having a science subject leader in primary schools, which is vitally important. Perhaps another approach would be to have science requirements on primary teachers, although that is not going to happen for existing teachers in primary schools. The Royal Society of Chemistry’s suggestion of science subject leaders in primary schools, which I think the Royal Society of Edinburgh also made, is therefore very important.
I have to say that I am very impressed, now that my granddaughter has been in primary school for one and a half years, by the science that she knows, but I imagine that as children go up through primary school it is more important that the teacher should really have a grasp of science, which many of them clearly do not have. We have to do something about science in primary schools.
The other issue that is highlighted in the motion and which we support is of course having more female science graduates. Again, Iain Gray gave the figures for engineering graduates, which are particularly stark in that 86 per cent of entrants to engineering are men. I was very privileged to have been at the engineering event in the Parliament recently, not least because Naomi Mitchison—young woman engineer of the year—works as an engineer in my constituency. I was very pleased to have a conversation with her in which she emphasised the importance of changing the perception of gender in engineering. However, that must start much earlier in the school system. I was going to say that it must be done before gender stereotypes build up in school, but we all know that they begin at a very early stage. It is clearly very important that they are challenged.
Lastly, but by no means least, there should be positive action on the attainment gap so that more opportunities for STEM subjects and careers in those subjects can arise for those from the most disadvantaged areas.
That is exactly four minutes for my speech, Presiding Officer.
16:24