Education: Science and Mathematics

My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, for raising this important subject today and for doing so in an extremely eloquent speech. The noble Lord is one of this country’s outstanding entrepreneurs. Indeed, many of us have benefited from his products—almost, but not quite, day by day. He is a strong advocate of the promotion of entrepreneurship and the enterprise culture and he is right to emphasise the huge importance of mathematics and science education to our economic and social prosperity in the next generation. We have heard a succession of excellent speeches, leading up to the unusually partisan speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I will respond later to the points that she made. However, I was in wholehearted agreement with most of what was said in the rest of the speeches. I was particularly glad that the debate gave the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, an opportunity to promote the themes of his highly stimulating book on science and society, from which he quoted. It also gave the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, an opportunity to sing the praises of the Girls’ Day School Trust, which is, as she said, an excellent organisation. Only a fortnight ago, it opened its new state academy in Liverpool, the Belvedere Academy; I was glad to be present for that. The academy will do a great deal to promote girls’ science education, not least in the city of Liverpool. A number of noble Lords have today mentioned my noble friend Lord Sainsbury’s excellent review of science and innovation, The Race to the Top. I was glad that he had a chance to speak to some of the main points in his remarks today. His report, which followed a huge piece of work by him and his team to get to the roots of the challenge facing us in science and mathematics education, is an important part of the Government’s answer to the question before us today, so let me start there. My noble friend examined how science and innovation will help to ensure that the UK remains competitive. China and India now produce more science and engineering graduates every year than the whole of the EU, America and Japan together. For example, Microsoft Research Asia became Microsoft’s most productive research area in just two years. As my noble friend put it: "““The challenge is not to hide behind trade barriers or engage in a ‘race to the bottom’ but to invest in the future in areas such as knowledge generation, innovation, education, re-training, and technological infrastructure. Twenty-five years ago it would not have been possible to imagine the UK as a global leader in science and innovation in the world economy, but today it looks like an attainable goal””." We agree with that analysis. The Government have accepted my noble friend’s recommendations, which are entirely supportive of and build on our existing science and innovation investment framework. I am glad that they do, as the framework was largely formed by my noble friend in the first place. Let me take the eight main Sainsbury recommendations that refer to schools and explain the Government’s proposed actions. First, the report recommends new incentives to encourage general science teachers and biology specialists to take accredited physics and chemistry courses to improve their teaching range and depth, an issue that was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. Subject to final spending review decisions, we expect to pay a £5,000 incentive to teachers who gain such accreditation. The noble Baroness referred to supply cover. We are also proposing to pay the costs of supply cover for the first year of the pilot course that is being developed by the science learning centres. Secondly, the Sainsbury report recommends changing the self-evaluation form that schools complete before Ofsted inspections to highlight recruitment and retention issues in relation to science and maths teachers. From this autumn, the form will prompt schools to set out the difficulties that they are having in recruiting science and mathematics teachers, in very much the way that my noble friend suggested. Thirdly, the report recommends long-term government funding for the 10 new science learning centres, which the noble Lord, Lord Rees, mentioned, with special support to enable teachers from schools with a shortage of science teachers to attend. The Government will continue to fund the regional science learning centres and we will subsidise the costs for the schools that need it most. Fourthly, my noble friend’s report recommends expanding the network of science and engineering clubs attached to schools, which are particularly geared to 11 to 14 year-olds who show interest and promise in science. The Government plan to double the number to 500 by 2010, so there will be a significant expansion. Fifthly, the report recommends giving all pupils who would benefit the chance to study the new further mathematics GCSE. The current pilot of this new GCSE is looking at what support and encouragement schools need to ensure the highest possible take-up. We stand ready to make an appropriate investment in this area in due course. Sixthly, the report recommends improving science and mathematics-related careers advice. This will start from next year, when we award a contract for the specific provision of such advice to schools. Seventhly, the report recommends annual monitoring of our progress towards our physics, chemistry and mathematics teacher targets. We are already undertaking this and I assure the House that we will continue to do so. Eighthly, the report recommends continuing to expand the opportunity for pupils to study separate physics, chemistry and biology GCSEs, a theme taken up by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. We will do this—it is a key government priority. From next September, all science specialist schools, of which there are 310, will offer triple science. Also from next September, all higher achieving pupils reaching level 6 or above in the science key stage 3 tests taken by all 14 year-olds will have an entitlement to study triple science at GCSE, irrespective of the schools that they attend. In all these areas, I believe that we have a good story to tell and my noble friend’s recommendations will help us improve the situation further. Let me respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I was amazed by her remarks about double science. I remind the House that the double science GCSE was introduced by the previous Government when the GCSE was introduced, in 1988. It was a core part of the GCSE scheme, as introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who is not in his place today. It was introduced because of the very poor take-up of triple science—indeed, even double science—in schools before then. Too many students were studying only a single science at school; this was a particular issue with girls, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. So while I am keen to see an increase in the proportion of pupils studying individual sciences, the introduction of triple science was a huge step forward for science education in our schools. It had nothing whatever to do with the meeting of targets, unless that was a gleam in the eye of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, at the time. The noble Baroness does us a disservice in blaming on us any ill effects there might be from reforms that were introduced by her Government 20 years ago. It is also not the case that key stage 3 mathematics performance has been declining, as I took her to suggest. The proportion of pupils reaching level 5, which is the level expected of 14 year-olds in the key stage 3 mathematics test, has risen from 60 per cent to 76 per cent since 1997, a significant increase over that period. As for the GCSE mathematics, the proportion of students achieving a C grade or better in GCSE mathematics has increased from 43 per cent in 1997 to 55 per cent this year. So I do not think that the noble Baroness’s remarks were to the point. There has been steady improvement since 1997. I am the last person to be complacent—there is a need for substantial further improvement still, but it is not the case that there has been a decline in standards. The same is true in science. In 1997, 44 per cent of pupils got at least one good GCSE pass in science; this year that proportion rose to 51 per cent. The uptake on A-levels is also improving this year on last year, although I fully accept, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, pointed out, that this is reversing previous declines and we need to see continuing increases in future. The increased uptake in science as AS and A-level is feeding through to greater success at further and higher education level. Latest UCAS figures show large increases in applications to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This year acceptances on such courses in England are up by 6.4 per cent; subject acceptances in the UK as a whole are up by 10.3 per cent for physics, 8.8 per cent for chemistry and 9.2 per cent for mathematics, while combined mathematics and computer science is up by 16.5 per cent. Again, the progress is in the right direction. My noble friend Lady Warwick represented the views of the university sector in this area. I am glad to say that university science is stronger than ever, not only in terms of the uptake of science courses, to which I have just referred, but also public spending on science which, under the stewardship of my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, has doubled under this Government and will continue to rise in real terms between now and 2011. With 1 per cent of the world’s population, the UK is responsible for 5 per cent of the world’s science and the proportion of our young people graduating in science subjects is still far greater than in China or India. Again, although there is much to be done, much is being achieved and we should not, as my noble friend said, sell ourselves short. I have very little time left and should like to concentrate on science teaching. As noble Lords said, we will achieve nothing in our schools unless we have effective science teaching. Over the past few years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of teachers being recruited in the science and technology area, thanks to a series of government policies which have helped to promote the recruitment of science teachers. They include golden hellos, which offer an incentive to train to a level over and above that at which the normal salary is paid; the introduction of bursaries for GCSE students; the introduction and expansion of the graduate teacher programme, which enables career switchers to train on the job and be paid a salary while they do so—something that was not available previously; and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned, the introduction of the Teach First programme, which is attracting into teaching many of our most talented graduates who might otherwise have been destined for a career in commerce or business. They undertake to teach for at least two years but, in practice, more than half stay thereafter. As a result, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of maths and science teachers going into our schools, and the introduction of more inspirational school teachers will do more than anything to see that the uptake of science at A-level and higher levels continues to increase in the years ahead. To recap, we are not complacent about the need for further measures in this area. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, was right to point to the importance of getting the basics right in primary schools so that everything thereafter improves too. We did not only start to do this suddenly with Sir Peter Williams’s report; in 1998, we introduced the national numeracy strategy, which put an emphasis on the systematic teaching of numeracy, primary school by primary school, and, at the same time, we introduced the national literacy strategy. As a result, there has been a substantial rise in performance levels in both numeracy and literacy in our primary schools. However, more needs to be done and we are on the case. The report by my noble friend Lord Sainsbury has helped us to enhance our policies in this area, and I undertake to keep the House informed of progress in the future.