News & Views item - December 2007

 

Royal Society Issues Critical 100 page report: The UK’s Science and Mathematics Teaching Workforce. (December 12, 2007)

Yesterday the Royal Society published its assessment of the quality and quantity of the UK's "science and mathematics teaching workforce"  and in its media release it opens

  Professor Julia Higgins

 with: "Who is teaching science and mathematics? Don’t ask the Government".

 

Michael Reiss, Director of Education at the Royal Society said: "The Government talks about placing a great deal of emphasis on the importance of science and mathematics. However, the vision of an economy driven by innovation will never become a reality unless there are enough high quality teachers in science and mathematics. The Government's workforce modelling is simply not fit for purpose. It is time that people woke up to the true scale of the problem and did something about it."

 

Professor Julia Higgins, Chair of the Royal Society working group that produced the report said: "The last ten years have seen lots of initiatives launched in education, yet science and mathematics still appear to be dangerously under-resourced. Without enough specialist teachers these initiatives may be doomed to failure. We have seen our schools drop from 4th to 14th in international league tables for science since 2000. It is time to stop the rot."

 

A member of Professor Higgins working group , Juliet Strang, Head teacher at Villiers High School, Southall is quoted as saying: "Recruiting specialist science and maths teachers is often very difficult because there are just not enough of them. Schools are having to come up with ever more creative ways of getting the right calibre of teacher. However committed and hard working school leaders are, if they cannot get the right teachers it is difficult, if not impossible to provide the good quality science and maths education that our young people need."

 

Summarising its work the working group says: