ANNETTE BROOKE MP CALLS FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO DO MORE TO PROMOTE SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS

12.00.00am GMT Tue 15th Jan 2008

Annette Brooke MP has today urged the Department for Children, Schools and Families to take immediate action to halt the decline in the number of pupils studying science. Schools have long struggled to get the specialist science teachers they need and this has lead to a downturn in the number of pupils going on to study science at A-level and degree level.

Recent figures show only 8% of pupils take three separate sciences at GCSE and only 14.8% of state-educated pupils go on to study chemistry A-level, compared with 33% of grammar school pupils. Speaking in response to these findings, Annette Brooke MP said,

"We are currently caught in a vicious cycle. The lack of qualified teachers, leads to uninterested students and therefore to a drop in the number of pupils studying science A-levels. This means that there is a steadily decreasing pool of graduates from which to recruit the specialist teachers we desperately need.

"The Government has announced much needed measures to introduce conversion courses for graduates to retrain as science teachers and is making efforts to improve access to teacher development training. However, a greater sense of urgency is required if the 20 year decline in science student numbers is to be reversed.

"It is also too little, too late. We are now four years on from the Treasury's original proposals to increase investment in science and technology and only a handful of teachers are being re-trained. It is time the government understood the principle of compound interest: start small and early and a target is attainable, leave it late and it becomes unachievable. That is what is in danger of happening to their target for science teachers."