SCIENCE AND EDUCATION (Hansard, 27 July 1960)

§ Mr. Frederick Peart (Workington)

I am very glad that Scottish members have raised a subject which, in a way, is very similar to what I am raising concerning English education. I will not deal specifically with universities, but rather with the impact of science upon our general educational system. I recognise that the subject is a large one, and in the short time at my disposal obviously I can touch only upon certain aspects of it.

I am sorry that there has been no major debate on science and the responsibilities of the Minister for Science during this Session. I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister. I wish that Parliament, during the months which we have had at our disposal, had debated the responsibilities of the Minister for Science, and especially his rôle in relation to the Ministry of Education.

This year we are celebrating the tercentenary of the Royal Society. I make the point that Parliament should discuss the application of science to education, industry and agriculture, because if we are to make a challenge in this rapidly-developing world we must plan our science, in the sense that we must give priorities—and, of course, education plays an important part.

I shall not this evening go in detail into the scientific manpower situation. The figures have been quoted ad nauseam. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree, however, that we must increase our scientific manpower, and that the key to that situation is undoubtedly the school itself. I have always argued with my hon. Friends who are interested in colonial development that only by making a scientific contribution can we develop the colonial territories, and end poverty and insecurity in the under-developed countries.

We must be able to send to those areas skilled technicians, scientists, engineers and the like who will, through their work, not only give advice but themselves play a major part in the development of those territories. If we are to challenge poverty all over the world and 1819 exert leadership in colonial administration, in the end it will all depend upon our ability to supply fully-trained men and women with scientific training.

That brings me back to the problem of our schools, and of our whole educational system. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that this is also true of our own economy, our own industrial development, and our agriculture. I should like to see—although I do not wish the Minister to comment on this tonight—the full implementation of the De La Warr Report on higher education in agriculture.

First, the Parliamentary Secretary has some responsibility here. He has a connection with the administration of education. Secondly, he must be concerned with our attitude towards science in the educational system itself, and whilst, in the time now available, I cannot deal with this vast problem in detail, I want to deal with certain aspects as I see them.

I know that both the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are optimistic. In a speech to the Association of Local Education Committees in June, the Minister confirmed a previous announcement that there would be a further 8,000 training college places; that the Government would produce 3,000 of those places by 1964; would produce by 1965 a further 2,500, and that by 1966 there would be a further increase of 2,500 places. I accept that—I hope that it is right.

In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) the Minister, I know, has given very detailed programmes. He has given the extended programme for training colleges and has said how each college is to have an expanded number of places. I applaud that—I believe it to be a right policy—but I want to know whether the Minister is really satisfied that more science will be taught in the colleges. It is all very well to have an expanded teacher training programme, to have more training college places and to expand the growth of the training college system, but is the Minister really satisfied that in the training colleges we are recruiting enough science lecturers and senior mathematical lecturers to train our potential teachers? I hope the Parlia- 1820 mentary Secretary will be able to answer because I believe it is important. It is the key.

I am not just concerned with people who are going to be trained in our training colleges, although they are important and form a major part of our educational system. But what about our graduate teachers in science? Is the Minister satisfied that we shall get from our universities over the next five or ten years an adequate supply of good graduate science men and women who will take a teacher's diploma and who will eventually go into the teaching profession? I am not sure.

I have here a quotation from that very excellent educational journal The Times Educational Supplement of Friday, 17th June. It is actually a quotation from a speech by Miss D. N. Glenday, who gave a presidential address to the Association of Headmistresses at its annual conference in London. Mentioning "Some of this year's facts", she said: One school seven years without a senior mathematics mistress, another four years without a physics mistress, still another (a new one) without a chemistry mistress since its opening two years ago. I could go on. That was a quotation from a person who holds a distinguished position in the educational world, a practising teacher, who knows this problem and she shows figures and quotes facts illustrating the position in our educational system, especially in our girls' schools.

As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, I have prejudices about the educational system. I believe that girls' schools, these single-sex institutions, are out of date. I am certain that the only way in which we could have girls taking more science and more engineering subjects would be to have what I have always advocated—mixed comprehensive schools, which I know are growing up in different parts of the country.

I am rather alarmed at the position of our girls' schools and particularly our girls' grammar schools, which do not have adequate facilities for training the girls in science and, indeed, in applied science itself. I know this is a difficult problem. It is a question of changing people's attitudes. Only a few weeks ago I conducted a personal survey of some of the children of hon. Members on this side of the House—very gifted 1821 children who are at universities and, in the main, products of girls' schools. All of them have gone up to the university, not to study science but to study the arts. If in those schools there had been proper facilities, it may well have been that one of the children I have mentioned would have shown an aptitude for science, and applied science, and would have gone further to the university.

Let us be honest. In girls' schools generally in this country, when we consider the facilities for teaching science and, indeed, the laboratory facilities, the position is deplorable. I hope that the Minister will give me an answer and I trust that his influence and that of his Ministry can be brought to bear on what I consider to be a scandal. I have always argued that a girl, if she has ability, should go in for engineering. Why should she not? Why should we have this silly attitude that girls should be taught domestic science only or, if necessary, botany or biology? I should like to see more girl engineers.

This is happening in other countries. We in our education system must make a bigger challenge than we are making at present. I have argued that the comprehensive school is the answer, because there boys and girls grow up together and there are not the silly differences that there are in the single-sex institutions.

Another point concerns school equipment for the teaching of science. It is important from the point of view of economy to have standardised laboratory equipment. This is of great value to the teacher, yet no British manufacturer is in this field. We have to rely on a German firm, Leybolds of Cologne, to supply the grammar schools and on the Swedish firm. Norstedts, which supplies sets of scientific equipment for children. Has the Ministry thought about this? It is important. This is an aid to teaching which can save considerable sums of money and lead to more efficient teaching where it is not possible to supply immediately a full-scale laboratory.

I do not always agree with The Times Educational Supplement but it is a very fine paper which plays an important rôle. The Minister must have noted some of the excellent articles which it has published on the teaching of science. 1822 An article which appeared in the issue of 13th May of this year deals with the teaching of science in grammar schools. It is concerned especially with modern physics at A level. The author, Mr. Armstrong of the College of Further Education, Welwyn Garden City writes: Entering science teaching some four years ago after a period in industry the writer was surprised to find how little work on twentieth century physics was included in the A level physics papers of the various examining boards, and experience soon showed that it was difficult to find teaching time even for the small amount present … I could quote further from the article which gives details of how in school after school—mainly grammar schools but also independent schools—there is not enough scientific equipment to teach modern physics. If the Ministry conducted its own independent survey it would confirm what is stated in The Times Educational Supplement.

A new attitude is needed. I know that the Ministry is trying. It produced a very fine pamphlet dealing with the teaching of science in secondary schools. The Crowther Report argues that science training should be given even to arts students in our schools. Why not? When we think of the atom and the application of nuclear energy to industry, nuclear physics can be exciting to the arts student. I believe that arts students should have some general science training and that science men should also have some general training in the humanities.

I hope therefore that the Ministry will seek to carry out the spirit of the Crowther Report and will try to "push" science much more than is done now. The position in the girls' school is deplorable. There is a great reservoir of scientific womanpower to be tapped in the girls' schools. After all, if a girl can work a sewing machine she can be interested in a lathe.

I think that the Minister will agree that the old dichotomy between arts and science is out-dated. It is a stupid thing which has grown up. It affects not only our schools but still, unfortunately, our universities. I know that in our universities to this day there are men and women who are supposed to be educated but who have never had any real general science education. This is wrong. Science should be for all. There are not two cultures—arts and science. They are 1823 one. This silly dichotomy which is often seen even in the grammer schools where boys and girls at an early age have to specialise to the detriment of another study is repeated right up to the universities.

I trust that on some other occasion when the House returns after the Recess we shall have a major debate on the subject—about the place of science in our economy, about the responsibilities of the Ministry for Science and about that Ministry's relationship with the Ministry of Education. We have to face this challenge. After all, we are in a scientific revolution and our educational system as yet has not caught up. We are still living in the past.

I will again quote the words of one of our most distinguished scientists, Sir John Cockcroft. They are the words that he uttered in 1958 when he returned from Russia, and they were quoted in the Evening Standard of 28th November of that year. I know that was more specifically concerned with nuclear developments, but he made this statement: At present Russian science and technology is not up to ours in all fields but in those given top priority it is already as good and soon will be better. As I said earlier, I will not go into details about our scientific manpower position and also its relative position compared with the Soviet Union, Western Germany and the U.S.A. All I say modestly this evening is that the country must wake up quickly. We all say this. The Minister for Science says it, the Minister of Education says it, the Government say it and the Opposition say it. But in the end if we are to produce the scientists we do it only if we really have a drive right down in our schools, not only at the secondary stage but also in our primary schools. I have on many occasions in the House argued that science should be taught even in the primary schools. That is why it is important that we should have in the training colleges proper teaching of science to intending teachers.

I merely say in conclusion that here we face a major revolution. That is obvious to all of us. I merely ask near the end of a Parliamentary Session, when hardly any hon. Members are here, when Parliament is perhaps tired, that we should at least think about this, and per- 1824 haps we shall be able to challenge the Departments by our activity and concern for the scientific manpower position and the place of science in our educational system.

§ Mr. Thompson

—which would not be true. I am glad that the hon. Member does not feel that the processes are all as bad as some people sometimes would have us believe.

Of course, we are short of teachers of most of the science subjects—and short of teachers of mathematics—both in the schools and, to a lesser extent, in the training colleges. Of course, it is true that we hope to turn out a larger number of qualified scientists and mathematicians and technologists from our school and colleges; I hope that the House will not believe that nothing is being done to try to remedy this defect and meet this need.

On the contrary, a very great deal is going on. The hon. Member referred to the expansion of the teacher training colleges by 8,000 places, but he and other hon. Members will be aware that that is the third stage of a much larger programme. The first stage was expansion by an additional 12,000 places. The second stage was the addition of 4,000 places. Added to that, there is now the third stage of 8,000 places and the sum total of these changes rather more than doubles the total teacher training resources of the country. The House will 1825 be interested to note that a very large part of the expansion will be in increasing the number of teachers coming from the colleges who are qualified to teach science in the schools at the various levels which the schools will require.

Perhaps it will be convenient if at this stage I deal with what the hon. Member said about the primary schools. I do not disagree with what he said about the desirability of having primary school children become familiar with the language and processes of the subjects which they will probably meet in later stages of their educational life.

Whether or not it is called "science" in the primary schools is another matter. We must not intimidate young children, nor frighten them off subjects with which they may have to deal later. However, certainly the processes of the science subjects should be brought to their notice when they are very young. In many schools—those with which we are all familiar through our normal visits to schools—there are "biology corners" with all sorts of experimentation with plant and animal life. Probably we do not call such things science subjects and they may be taught by teachers who are not specially trained in science subjects and perhaps that is a defect, but the fact of the matter is that the child at a very young age is making his first nodding and perhaps distant acquaintance with the science subjects which will be important to him later on.

I agree with the hon. Member that there may be more which we can do by using the output of the expanded training colleges, which are themselves giving greater emphasis to science to help this process along, first in the primary schools and then in the secondary modern and grammar schools.

I should like the House to know that we regard this as of the greatest possible importance and priority and we hope that the expanded training colleges, with their lengthened courses and therefore greater opportunities for training science teachers, will give us a greater output of those who can take on this job.

In the main, the training colleges have three separate levels of teacher training for science courses. There is the ordinary curriculum course in which the ordinary teacher, who is not going to specialise as a science teacher, takes a certain amount of science in his stride 1826 along with other subjects in the course of his experience at the training college. That is very important in every way. First, it qualifies the teacher to do a certain job of work of this kind in the schools, but it also helps to complete his training in the sense that he is much more likely to be a fully trained teacher with a broad approach to all the problems and all the subjects with which he will deal When he leaves training college.

The second type of course provides opportunities for a main study of one of the science subjects in the training college. Students take either one or two of their main subjects in science. They may go either to primary schools or to secondary modern schools when they have qualified from the training college. These same students may also take an additional one year supplementary course in a science subject, and from there on they are very well qualified to take science to quite a high level in either secondary modern schools or, in the case of good students, in a grammar school.

Then there is the advanced specialist course in one of the science subjects, in which the science subject itself constitutes the student's entire academic work. These students will be the mainstay of the science departments of the secondary modern schools, and in many cases then can render very useful service in some grammar schools. I think it is probably true to say that teachers trained in that way have an approach which is singularly useful in certain types of work in the schools, perhaps more useful than that of those trained as graduates.

The number of training college students in mathematics and science, taking the two together, for that is how we collect the figures, has increased from 600 in 1956–57 to over 1,100 in 1959–60, an increase of almost 100 per cent. The net increase in mathematics and science graduates in 1959—that is the increase in the total number of teachers available in one year—was 612. The comparable figure in 1958 was 303, which shows that the figure was doubled.

Not only are we increasing the size of the training colleges, but the universities themselves are expanding at a very rapid rate and to a very high figure. I have every reason to believe that we can get a large increase in the number of graduates who come forward to teach 1827 from this vastly increased output from the universities. It is from there that we want to draw the great strength for the teaching of science subjects to a high level in our grammar schools. We have every reason to hope that we will get the figures we want. The plans that have been laid for the expansion of the universities mean that there will be an 80 per cent. increase in the number of science graduates leaving the universities in the period up to 1966.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of subjects which I am sorry I have not time to deal with in detail, but I want to refer briefly to science teaching for girls and, if I have time, to deal with his point about science equipment.

It is true that the shortage of science teachers is most severe in the case of 1828 girls. It is not difficult to see the reason. Girls tend to lean towards non-scientific subjects and if, as is true, the schools at which they attend are deficient in their provision for science, for historical reasons, and if the teachers are not available in their schools to take the science subjects to a high level, this tendency is encouraged. But, here again, there is good reason to think that the trend is in the right direction—