Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2015
Science is always ill served by smug self-satisfaction, and we will pay a price for that in our future.
I move amendment S4M-12385.1, to leave out from “which occurred” to end and insert:
“particularly computing science teachers, which occurred between the academic sessions 2007-08 and 2013-14, and which, many employers believe, is leading to insufficient numbers of pupils seeking tertiary education courses in these subjects; is concerned that, if the situation is allowed to continue, there will be a detrimental effect on the Scottish economy, which, in the future, will be increasingly dependent on science, engineering and technology skills; urges the Scottish Government to heed the calls from the Royal Society of Chemistry in Scotland that there should be specialist science teachers in every primary school, from the Institute of Physics in Scotland that more should be done to encourage female science graduates and the recent survey, published by the Learned Societies Group on Scottish Science Education and supported by The Royal Society of Edinburgh, which suggested that 98% of primary and secondary schools depended on external funding for practical work; believes that the “attainment gap” excludes thousands of Scots from STEM opportunities and therefore welcomes the Scottish Attainment Fund, but calls on the Scottish Government to further increase the level of funding to reduce educational inequality by at least £25 million per year, funded from a 50p top rate of tax, targeted at those schools whose pupils face the greatest educational challenges to ensure that all pupils have the opportunity to achieve the qualifications needed for a career in science, maths, engineering and technology.”
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