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Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleScience, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: The Cornerstone of Economic Success |
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Good morning everyone. I would like to thank Colin Baldyga and the Executive of the SATRO Network for inviting me here to speak on a subject about which we are all passionate - the promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to the young. I am especially pleased that you have brought together all those designated as SETPoints, whether or not they are SATROs, so that you can all network, compare notes and best practice and do all those other things that make the informal parts of Conferences like these at least as valuable as the formal sessions. I am pleased that my Department has played some part in enabling you to do this. As you are all aware, the Government recently announced a comprehensive package of measures to keep the UK in the vanguard of world science. They were set out in the Science and Innovation White Paper "Excellence and Opportunity - a science and innovation policy for the 21st century". The White Paper contained a total of 55 commitments, representing 10 separate agendas for achieving our overall aims for sustaining and making the most of our science base as the bedrock of our nation's economy and well being. The Science and Innovation White Paper sets out our policies to achieve three main goals: science excellence, innovation and public confidence. Science Excellence To maintain and enhance the excellence of the science base, we are:
Public Confidence Finally, if we are going to maximise the benefits that flow from current scientific advances, we need to have consumers who have a confident relationship with science and see it as an opportunity and not a threat. Government has a role both in assuring consumers that risks have been properly assessed and controlled, and in communicating those risks clearly. We are, as a first step: The measures set out in the White Paper provide a solid foundation for building a dynamic Knowledge Economy in the UK. They will ensure that we can harness the full potential of science to contribute to prosperity, jobs, environmental sustainability and the health of the nation. Better Science in Schools All children in England and Wales study science, through the National Curriculum, from the start of school until they are 16. Until they are 9 or 10, most are enthusiastic about science lessons and discoveries they make there. They achieve well, compared to children of the same age in other countries. And primary school science teaching has improved considerably in the last three years, as results of tests for 11 year olds demonstrate. But as they move to secondary school, too many children lose interest in science. Nevertheless, the number of young people taking science and technical A levels has gone up in recent years, more than the overall increase in numbers staying on at school and moving on to higher education. But we need to keep careful watch on this; in some important subjects, numbers have fallen slightly in the most recent year. The picture for first degrees is more worrying. Numbers of young people graduating in science, engineering and technology are going up, but not as fast as the total. There are some worrying trends, particularly the fall in numbers of chemistry and physics graduates, and in engineering. This is an area we are addressing. Underpinning our policy in this area is a commitment to ensuring that we provide our children with the highest standards of teaching. We said in the White Paper that we proposed to strengthen the support available to teachers so as to ensure that every young person is enabled to make sense of the world in which we live and the way it is changing. This will give the best possible start to those who want to pursue careers in STEM-related areas. It will also help ensure that levels of scientific literacy are strengthened so that we can all, as citizens, take sensible decisions about those issues where Science is pushing at the boundaries of human knowledge and ability. I will have some more detailed points to make about this later. The Government intends to make science more exciting for all our children and that is why we have announced that 2001/02 will be Science Year targeted on those aged 10-19. During this year, we will aim to raise the profile of science and technology in schools and to increase pupils'interest, and promote science as fun, exciting and relevant to everyday life. To help in this, the White Paper announced the creation of a Science Ambassadors programme as part of Science Year, in which top science students will form links with schools and colleges, and especially with those which don't have a strong history of pupils going on to study science - to help sell the message to the next generation of students. We are considering how best to put this into practice, so that the scheme fits with current initiatives - we must avoid cutting across what is happening already. We are looking at good practice in for example Research Council programmes, the Engineering Council's Neighbourhood Engineers Programme and at work being done by other organisations such as BAE SYSTEMS, Marconi and ESSO, the Royal Society and the Mercers' Company that, like the NEP, re-inforce your efforts.I hope as a result that Science Ambassadors - as part of Science Year - will be able to reach out to many young people who would not otherwise consider science and engineering careers. Strengthening STEM Delivery During the last year the Government has taken a number of steps to strengthen the delivery of STEM activities which link business and schools. We have done so because we are persuaded by the evidence that participation in these activities helps achieve a number of valuable outcomes. Most obviously, it stimulates interest in STEM-oriented careers and also helps with the creation of a scientifically literate population. For our democracy to continue to flourish it is vital that each of us can make informed judgements about the risks we face. Scientists and engineers are continuing to extend the boundaries of knowledge about the world around us well beyond what anyone besides Science fiction authors could imagine in the past -and we must ensure that understanding of these developments is widely shared within society. I acknowledge too, although as yet there is only anecdotal evidence, that participation in STEM activities improves attitudes towards the learning process and addresses many of the core skills, such as communication and team-working that are of increasing importance. Thus far we have done the following: We have supported the process of embedding STEM-activity within new education-business link consortia in England, by commissioning work aimed at helping to identify relevant STEM expertise in each of the 47 LSC areas in England. . We did so to assist those in the Government Offices charged with overseeing the formation of the new consortia to identify the people whose experience of STEM delivery and willingness to co-operate with each other made them the right people to be involved. It is a measure of the extent to which this work was successful that I understand that only in one of the 47 areas was there any difficulty with the selection. And that has been resolved by constructive attitudes on all sides. We have encouraged the Campaign to Promote Engineering, and others, to recognise the importance of developing close working relationships with you, the STEM deliverers, where they wanted to engage with schools and I believe they have absorbed that message and that relationships are stronger as a result. And we have recognised that STEM Delivery is under-resourced and fragmented to an extent that should not continue. From April next year the formation of the new education-business link consortia in England will help reduce fragmentation, and improve the links between STEM and other education-business link activities. We will be working closely with DfEE and the Learning and Skills Council, which will be responsible for all education business link activity, to ensure that these consortia are a success. I should say too that we are committed to working also with the devolved administrations in taking this process forward. But I am also aware that effective STEM delivery requires access to adequate resources. We are conscious that each of you has had to be successful in securing funding from multitude of sources in order to operate at your present levels. I am not going to tell you that we are removing that necessity. Indeed, I wouldn't want to even if I could. I think the need to engage with national and local employers, Universities etc and make what you deliver reflect their needs as well as the educational needs of the young is one of your great strengths. But what I can say is that we have recognised that Government needs to help you with this task and help you to widen your coverage to reach every child as they go through education so that, at least once in each Key Stage, every child should have the opportunity to participate in an appropriate STEM activity. We have engaged with a number of partners and are still in discussion with others to join in partnership with us to enable you to address this challenging task. As you will know we have already offered financial support for the preparation of a STEM Delivery plan, within the education business link consortia development plans in England and I hope those are well in hand. Once those are approved, we have further funds available to help with relevant work in the rest of this financial year. This is, of course a long-term issue and I am pleased to tell you that DTI is committing an additional £6m, £2m per annum for the next three years from April 2001, to help you to offer every child the opportunity to benefit from a STEM activity. We are hopeful that, with our potential partners, we will generate at least enough money to enable you to address Key Stages 1 to 4. For those outside England this means those aged upto 16. This would mean at least £2.5m p.a. of new funding that will enable you to leverage in additional funds from those you deal with locally. Our aim is to generate sufficient funding to enable you to address each young person in school and we are in discussion with potential partners currently about this. But the most important young people to reach are those too young to have made 'A level choices'.So that is where we will want you to focus. As you know those who opt out of 'A level'Maths and Physics or Chemistry have effectively ruled themselves out of the lists for careers in Science, Engineering and Technology. I must emphasise that this money doesn't come without strings. We will expect the STEM delivery plans to be as strong as they can. We will want to be sure that they will enable you to achieve the sorts of strong working relationships with every school on your patch that will be necessary if you are to ensure that every child has the opportunity we want you to offer them. And we will want to be sure that they are delivered successfully. We will set in place procedures to monitor achievement. And we will want to ensure that you can learn from each others - best practices in a more structured way than is the case now. The Government will be setting out to persuade those who want to work with schools to encourage STEM activitiesthat the local delivery consortium is the channel to use. We have done this with the Campaign to Promote Engineering and recognise that it needs to be done more widely. We will do so, but we need you to demonstrate that schools see you as their regular partners in supporting STEM activities. We also intend to begin to address the multiplicity of schemes, awards and activities that make this such a confused picture when seen from schools - as the recent report by the Council for Science and Technology "Science Teachers: supporting and developing the profession of science teaching in primary and secondary schools" - made clear. The CST report found that the material to support, enhance and extend teaching of the curriculum is by no means extensively employed. A high proportion of teachers rarely use the vast amount of support material and resources that is produced and sponsored by many companies, professional bodies, charities, education organisations and institutions. Even the most popular are rarely used by more than 2% of the total population of teachers. Of course, we cannot stop organisations from introducing new initiatives. Nor would DTI, of all people, want to discourage innovation. But, with stronger deliverers seen by schools as their partners we can try to persuade major organisations that they will have more impact if they work with us than if they paddle their own canoe. Concluding Remarks So, finally, let me close by saying that you have a new partner in Government and we are in this for the long-term. To justify our support and that of our partners, you must, as I know you can, deliver the testing targets we have set. I understand that DTI had a hand in establishing the SATRO network originally some 20 plus years ago. I also undertstand that in the margins of this conference, it has been suggested that SETNET and SATRO should come together as a single network. I welcome this. We now intend to enable you all to move towards achieving your full potential offering every child the opportunity to take part in a STEM activity. I wish you every success. |
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Other speeches by Lord Sainsbury of Turville
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