Given the UK’s declining number of students taking advanced physics and chemistry, a lot is riding on the new GCSE science course, Twenty First Century Science. The Nuffield Foundation, which designed it, describes it as giving ‘all 14 to 16 year olds a worthwhile and inspiring experience of science’. But will it lead more young people to study advanced science and mathematics? Andrew Hunt and David Perks disagree.

Dear Andrew,

Baroness Warnock’s comment, reported in the Times, that the new science GCSE was ‘fit for the pub’ concisely expressed the qualms many people have about the turn away from academic science education we seem to be taking in schools. Warnock, along with Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial College, expressed disquiet that we are in danger of accelerating the decline in the number of pupils taking science further.

When I debated with Michael Reiss (Education Director at the Royal Society) recently, he made the same point: many proponents of reform are fond of saying that the new GCSE will make science education more relevant to young people, and that it holds up the promise that more of them will choose to pursue science further into A-level and beyond.

I hope you agree that both sides of this argument cannot be right. Reiss’s parting shot to me was to wait and see if the numbers going into science at A-level and undergraduate level increase. Then we would know who was right.

I don’t think we need to wait. Children put it like this: ‘Why should I do science, I am never going to need it when I leave school?’ Instead of answering their question, which should be our bread and butter, we have started to agree with them.

Yours, David

Dear David,

Like the BA, I am all for ‘pub science’ – the posh names are SciBArs or Café Scientifique. We had to make changes because the old one-size-fits-all GCSE science programme was meaningless to far too many young people.

Both sides of the argument can be right with a curriculum which has a strand to prepare all young people for adult life in parallel with courses to challenge those who aspire to a future in science.

Baroness Warnock and Richard Sykes have not taken a close look at the new courses. I prefer the testimony of the student who wrote in the Independent that she, along with others in her school, is being encouraged to take sciences to A-level thanks to the new GCSEs. She has been engrossed in science for the first time. If it weren’t for this new course, she says, she would still be tuning out in lessons and counting down the days until she could give up science.

As for rigorous science, see the review of one of our texts by a teacher for the Royal Society of Chemistry: ‘Only a thorough read will give you the pleasure of following the careful and finely-tuned explanations of demanding concepts.’

Bear in mind that research shows that curriculum content is a minor factor among the influences on young people’s choices when it comes to advanced study.

Yours, Andrew

Dear Andrew,

You say that science education is ‘meaningless to far too many young people’. I am afraid I can’t agree.

There is an unhealthy assumption lurking within this point of view that most young people just aren’t up to science and that we just shouldn’t bother trying to educate them, as they won’t get it. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to open my classroom doors to any child and let them come with me as far as they can on a journey into a world they couldn’t otherwise reach.

That is not to say that learning science isn’t a demanding thing. As Professor Steve Jones put it in the Telegraph, ‘Science turns on a mountain of “fact, fact, fact!”– without it, any discussion of its implications becomes simple fancy.’ So, surely, we need to give the next generation the best possible initiation into science if they are to really appreciate the fruits of scientific endeavour.

At bottom, I am not sure that we agree on how important science is. Unless I am mistaken, you seem to be implying that science education just isn’t important for most people – ordinary citizens rather than future scientists. Is this really the case?

Yours, David

Dear David,

Science education is very important for everyone – but it has got to be the right kind of science education.

One of our main reasons for change was to make it again possible to teach science principles in a rigorous manner – something which has been steadily eroded over twenty years, as the desire to broaden access has led to continual pressure to reduce content and depth. This has not, however, resulted in improved student attitudes to science as a career option – indeed the reverse; not only in the UK, but also in most developed countries.

Instead of offering every student the same diluted form of academic science, we have divided the normal 20 per cent time allocation into two components:

GCSE Science, which teaches how science works, along with theories that show what science has to tell us about ourselves and our world. This is crucial if people are to appreciate the impact of science on our culture, and to have informed debate about science and society issues.

GCSE Additional Science, which provides a challenging introduction to fundamental theories from the three main sciences. For some, we offer instead an Applied Science option that has turned out to be one of the great successes of our pilot programme – and has certainly encouraged more students to take up post-16 science.

Yours, Andrew

Dear Andrew,

The trouble with rejecting the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is that it risks leaving too many pupils without a formal science education at GCSE. Choice is not the answer. The temptation is to explicitly offer pupils a non¬academic choice at GCSE. The Applied Science GCSE is no preparation for A-level sciences.

Our problem is we are just not preparing pupils to take science seriously. Too many pupils start A-level science courses with a weak mathematics and science background. As a result, a large percentage of them drop out after one year. How will it help if pupils spend a year being taught issues-based science?

At a recent GCSE training day, it became obvious that many schools were unprepared to risk entering pupils for separate science GCSEs under the new regime. This runs counter to the government’s target that every child who achieves level 6 in their SATs should have an entitlement to study separate sciences by 2008.

My concern is that we are pulling schools in the opposite direction. Separate sciences are still an option, but they are not the priority. Instead, schools are told to concentrate on teaching ‘how science works’ and delivering ‘science in the news’ style media studies lessons. This is at best a distraction from delivering a sound science education to every child.

Yours, David

Dear David,

Recent international research has shown a very strong inverse correlation between the interest young people have in becoming scientists, and the general level of development in their country. The work of physicists and engineers is no longer seen as crucial to people’s wellbeing in more developed countries – irrespective of school structures and curriculum patterns.

There are schools that can buck the trend through good teaching, supported by ambition at home and experiences which highlight the opportunities open to those with qualifications in maths and science.

In any case, science education should not be considered in isolation. There is a pressing need to improve young people’s competence and confidence in mathematics if they are to go on with science.

While university admissions and league table scores are narrowly based on the results of three A-levels, we are not going to persuade many more young people to study pure physical sciences and maths so long as it is demonstrably more difficult to get good grades in these subjects.

We need to open up new routes to science, which is what the Applied Science GCSEs have begun to do. Maybe not into A-level physics, but certainly into a range of worthwhile advanced work-related science courses. It is a mistake to have too narrow a definition of what counts as science.

Yours, Andrew

Dr Andrew Hunt is Director of the Curriculum Centre at the Nuffield Foundation

David Perks is Head of Physics at Graveney School in London