Science: Majority Rules

Science & technology at Portslade Aldridge Community Academy

The Government believes that the future economic success of the United Kingdom depends on a good supply of skilled scientists and engineers. The current science curriculum attempts to provide both training in science for a minority and access to basic scientific literacy for the majority. Yet, more and more school children are being turned off by science. Forcing the majority to follow a science agenda aimed at the minority with the hope that it might encourage more pupils to take science as a post compulsory subject is having a detrimental effect on science education, due to the pressures it has introduced into the classrooms. What we have now is a system that is being driven by the needs of the minority, rather than serving the majority. Professor Edgar Jenkins (in 2009) highlighted this point: “An earlier definition of school science ‘as a pipeline, albeit leaky’, dedicated to supplying the next generation of scientists, is rejected in favour of ‘a science education for all’ that ‘can only be justified if it offers something of universal value for all rather than the minority who will become future scientists’.”

“School science … must offer something of universal value for all”

Nick Gibb, MP minister of state for schools, in reference to academies, stated: “For far too long, governments of all persuasions have sought to interfere too much in the day-to-day management of schools. Academies are able to innovate across all aspects of their work, such as curriculum and assessment, to tailor the support they provide and drive up standards for all pupils in the communities they serve.”

With the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) centre at PACA and support from the University of Sussex and University of Brighton, we are being offered a unique window of opportunity to innovate and deliver a science agenda fit for the 21st century. Due to the unnecessary and unhealthy competition developed between schools, funds have been diverted from the pot of educating our children into empty PR campaigns. It is time to re-address this and ensure that funds are directed to relevant educational activities, such as STEM. Being part of the brilliant Brighton Science Festival this year has re-affirmed my belief that STEM has a lot to offer our children.