APPENDIX 85
Memorandum from Dr GC Bye
I write to express my concern at the growing
trend of closures of chemistry departments in universities particularly
since it seems not to be as a result of shortage of student applicants
(although this itself could become serious) but of the cost of
providing the subject.
For the long term, the current trend raises
alarm at the prospect of falling numbers of chemistry graduates
available for teaching in schools. How often one reads of people
who have followed a particular subject through life as a result
of enthusiasm inculcated by a stimulating specialist schoolteacher!
A decline in the number of graduates with skills
in the physical and chemical sciences (and engineering) will have
serious consequences for the economy on all time scales. I do
not believe that our economy can survive on service industries
alone. Because of a linking thread of physical chemistry, my own
research experience involved: materials for oil industry catalysts,
ceramics, cement, the environment (one example acid mine drainage)
and low level nuclear wastes and it shows how widely applied chemistry
ranges.
I hope that this timely Enquiry can convey to
the Minister for Further and Higher Education the importance of
preserving the departments which produce graduates important to
the economy. We cannot allow the relatively short term nature
of market forces to lead to a continuation of the almost irreversible
loss of university resources.
January 2005
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