Margaret Hodge
Science education
This speech was given as part of a debate in the House of Commons.
I join others in congratulating the Committee and the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), on the very good report on science education. I congratulate my hon. Friend, too, on securing time for a three-hour debate, which is not insubstantial in the House, to discuss the report's conclusions. I share with the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) the view that we have had a well-informed and non-confrontational—rather than consensual—debate; hon. Members have expressed various views. I hope that this good debate is the start of further consideration of the important issues that have been raised.
There is a consensus on the importance of science to drive economic growth and improve the quality of our lives, which was particularly well articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner), and the importance of scientific literacy to support citizenship and all that goes with it. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend as I believe that there is plenty in modern science that would make good TV soaps; he should perhaps talk to a producer or two. I can think of a good subject: GM foods, for example, or an issue such as genetic modification which would entice millions of viewers to early-evening viewing while they are having a cup of tea.
Dr. Desmond Turner : I am very glad that my hon. Friend agrees with my comments. Would she volunteer to encourage television companies to take up some superb issues that are knocking around out there? Humble grunts from the Back Benches do not cut as much ice as the Minister.
Recently, Back Benchers have had much more airtime than many on the Front Bench. We both have a role to play in encouraging those developments.
There is a cultural issue, which hon. Members described in various ways. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) talked about the anti-science culture and the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) talked about cultural apartheid. We accept that there are cultural issues, which we must address. I hope that hon. Members will accept that the Government are taking them seriously.
I will give hon. Members one little fact: the Secretary of State has recently given me the responsibility for promoting science as a discipline in the Department for Education and Skills. I am responding to what is primarily a schools debate to take forward that responsibility. I have had good discussions with several members of the Select Committee about how to make science fun and how to persuade more people, especially young people and girls, in whom I have an interest, to study science through education and to pursue it in their working lives.
I take on my responsibility as someone who dropped science at the age of 13 or 14 because I hated my science teacher. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) mentioned inspirational teachers—
Dr. Gibson : Was the teacher a man or a woman?
It was a woman, in an all-girls school. I concur with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East. However, before I had my current responsibility for promoting science in the curriculum as Minister for Lifelong Learning, I had determined that I would do a physics A-level at some point in my life, simply because I do not want to be beaten by it. I invite the hon. Member for Daventry to join me in that lifelong learning ambition.
Dr. Gibson : May I point my hon. Friend in the direction of the Secretary of State, to whom I gave a book at Christmas about the physics of football? She will certainly learn from that how to bend it like Beckham from first physics principles.
As long as the book does not promote Norwich City and promotes Arsenal I will happily read it. Throughout the debate, legitimate concerns have been raised by members of the Science and Technology Committee. I assure Committee members that we take those concerns seriously, and I hope that in the time remaining I can describe the actions that we are taking to try to address those concerns. However, I also hope that the Committee will acknowledge—some Committee members have done so today—that we have made progress in many of those areas since we have been in government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and the hon. Member for Southport both alluded to the Government's good record on raising the standards of science in primary schools. In 1998, 69 per cent. of pupils reached level 4 at key stage 2, and by 2001 that percentage had risen to 87 per cent. In 2000, 59 per cent. reached level 5 at key stage 3, and by 2002 that percentage had risen to 67 per cent. The number of pupils achieving GCSE grades A to C has gradually increased year on year.
We should not get too depressed in the debate this afternoon, because four out of five pupils currently follow a course that leads to the double award in science GCSE, and six out of 10 are currently taking science or maths at A or AS-level. Although I recognise that in some areas the figures have been decreasing, that is not a bad base from which to start. We should not, therefore, get too depressed about the future of engagement in science and science education in our schools.
At university level, although I know that some science departments are closing and others are under threat, there are also areas of growth. For example, the physical sciences may be decreasing overall, but there is growth in astronomy and oceanography. Similarly, engineering may be decreasing overall, but some areas, such as aeronautical and electronic engineering, are experiencing an increase in demand. There are good signs as well as bad.
I want to describe some of the initiatives that the Government have taken, which support the shared ambition expressed in the debate this afternoon to improve the quality of science education in schools and to increase the enthusiasm for the subject through schools, so that that will lead to further training and learning, and to more people taking up careers in science.
The specialist college initiative has been important. The hon. Member for Salisbury raised that issue, and gave his generous support to the initiative. There are 24 specialist colleges up and running, and there will be 40 more by September. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North alluded to the school in his constituency, Derby high school, which is very innovative: it is a specialist college in science and the performing arts. There are also two specialist schools in science and engineering, which are innovative and a good way forward.
I shall also mention the £51 million grant from the Wellcome Foundation, matched by the Government, to establish the national network of science learning centres. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North said that there would be six regional centres, but we hope that there will be nine, including the national centre. We hope that the first centre will open in 2004, and that those centres will provide a focus for the enthusiasm that we want to engender among our teachers, and give them confidence. It is important to have enthusiastic teaching, because that will help science throughout the curriculum, in primary as well as secondary schools.
I should also like to mention the work that we are doing in the post-16 standards unit in the Department. We are looking at particular areas of the curriculum to see how we can improve the pedagogy and provide better teaching and learning material and professional developments for teachers. Science is one of the first four areas that we have selected. We now have nearly 300 advanced skills teachers in science, which is a good beginning. They are all enjoying the electronic whiteboards, which are a powerful innovation in classroom teaching. We have also been able to provide free Intel digital microscopes in every maintained primary and secondary school in celebration of science year.
We are doing a great deal to try to get the benefits of information and communication technology into science teaching. One instance in the work we are doing around key stage 3 involves data logging. The data involved can be captured either very fast or very slowly, depending on what one is attempting to do. It is thus possible to see how long it takes for a ball bearing to drop from different heights or track the changes in greenhouse temperature. That is an example of how we are hoping to bring the developments in new technology into the classroom.
The millennium science centres have been a good innovation. I am discussing with my colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport how we can keep the best of those going. I hope that the growing schools initiative will encourage more scientific field work in schools, an issue raised by several hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East. All the advice that we put out at both primary and secondary level encourages the better use of field work. I accept that much more has to be done. A lot comes from the enthusiasm of individual teachers that we must engender.
The issue of teachers themselves has been raised by a number of speakers. Contrary to what the hon. Members for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) and for Daventry said, our attempts to recruit new teachers into science are doing well. In 1999-2000, the year before golden hellos were introduced, we recruited 2,362 people into science teacher training. In the first year of the golden hellos, that rose by 13 per cent. to 2,670. Far be it from me to disagree with Opposition Members, but the preliminary figures for applications that were announced yesterday showed that science teacher training was up 12 per cent. on this time last year. English teacher training was up 10 per cent. and maths teacher training was up by 25 per cent. Within the science teacher cohort the number of people with physics degrees was up by 17 per cent. Those are all welcome moves in the right direction.
Dr. Murrison : Will the Minister give way?
Margaret Hodge : I will continue, as we are running out of time and I want to respond on some of the other issues that have been raised.
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We have also launched our new studentships: 50 of the brightest and the best A-level students in maths, chemistry and physics who choose to go into teaching will have all their expenses paid at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Science year, which is now Planet Science, has been successful in promoting good science teachers. Four out of five teachers have now heard of it. Over half of the maintained schools have registered to use the free resources. We are hoping that schemes like the seismic science clubs will become part of the legacy of the initiatives that have taken place under science year. A number of hon. Members mentioned the science and engineering ambassadors, which is a scheme to provide mentors.
I want to deal briefly with the curriculum. We all recognise that there is an issue in the nature of the curriculum, which is why we have taken a number of initiatives around it. It is not just the curriculum, but the way that it is taught. That combination is important. We have decided that science will remain in the national curriculum with a core of science, which must be both suitable and enriching to provide the basis for a range of qualifications. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North asked me for the timetable for that. We are expecting to receive QCA advice on 17 April. There will then be a period of consultation with both schools and subject interests. We expect to introduce the changes in September 2005.
The programme of study for key stage 4 will, I hope, be less prescriptive and more interesting. There will be not just Bunsen burners and test tubes; subjects will be more relevant to individuals' day-to-day lives. I hope that that will give teachers the necessary confidence, so that they can make science a joyful experience. I take on board the issue of repetition in the curriculum, which is not peculiar to science and which can be seen in whole areas of the curriculum.
The vocation-focused applied science GCSE, which we launched in September 2002, is a good way forward. It will help students, on the basis of their knowledge of biology, chemistry or physics, to learn about the world of work. It will help them in a range of areas, and they will perhaps develop into laboratory technicians or environmental scientists. I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North that it is too early to tell how the provisions are working, but we will want to evaluate them.
The new GSCE in science in the 21st century, which we will pilot in 50 schools in September, aims to stimulate science education for consumers, users or producers of science. It will raise some interesting questions, such as, "Do I contribute to air pollution?" or "Is pollution harmful to my environment or me?" or "What choices can we make to improve the quality of air?"
The citizenship programme addresses some of the scientific literacy issues raised by hon. Members. Issues such as immunisation, food safety and organ donation should be integral to the citizenship agenda. The hon. Members for Daventry, for Westbury and for Southport mentioned the difficulty of trying to face two ways, and I agree with them. We must ensure that we have a strong cohort of people who will study science at university and take it up a career. Equally, however, we want to develop scientific literacy among the population as a whole. The last thing we want to do is dumb down what some hon. Members have called hard science.
Interesting points were made about the baccalaureate. Mike Tomlinson is studying assessment and the curriculum. In the interim, however, I should say that curriculum 2000 has not been a failure; it has been an interesting way of enabling young people to study science and humanities subjects. We are also looking at to what we can do to ensure that the maths curriculum is appropriate.
The gender issue is close to my heart, and it is a real challenge. I have said I will focus much of my work on encouraging more girls into science. It is not that they do not go into science, because more girls than boys are studying to become doctors. However, more boys are studying to become engineers. We therefore need to ensure that young people of both genders pursue all aspects of science. Bodies such as the Equal Opportunities Commission are working with the Department of Trade and Industry and using the resources that it has produced, and the commission's "What's Stopping You" campaign challenges the stereotypes. Other initiatives that we can take include looking at the new science GCSEs that we are pursuing and updating the guidance that we give to the Connexions service. Several hon. Members raised those issues. However, we face a real challenge. I hope that ambassadors, which we are beginning to embed in schools, will also be a focus.
This is not the end of the debate, but the beginning. Hard issues have been raised in relation to what is a hard discipline. I recognise how crucial science is to our economic and social well-being. I thank those who contributed to the report, because they have added much to the breadth of our understanding of how we must tackle some difficult issues. I hope that we can take several recommendations forward; indeed, we are already doing so. I look forward to engaging members of the Select Committee and other hon. Members on some of these issues.
It being half-past Five o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment lapsed, without Question put.
