Examination of Witnesses (Questions 166-179)
LORD SAINSBURY
OF TURVILLE
20 JUNE 2006
Q166 Chairman: Could we say good morning
to you, Lord Sainsbury, and thank you very much indeed for fitting
us into your diary. I apologise to you for the fact we are rather
short on the Committee today by numbers because of the rearranged
date. A number of Members are, in fact, away with other Select
Committees on this particular day because we do not normally meet
on a Tuesday. It was more important that we met you to hear your
pearls of wisdom than to rearrange the date well into the future.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
apologise for having to change the date, but I had a small problem
with the Company Law Reform Bill in the House of Lords which needed
to be sorted out.
Q167 Chairman: It was only a small
problem, and we do appreciate it. What we lack in quantity we
make up in quality this morning. Could I start with my normal
process? We have given you the four major topics, and the first
one is about what consultations the Office of Science and Innovation
has had with the DfES on measures to ensure that the 2014 target
for science teachers is met?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
original target set in the 2004 Science and Innovation Investment
Framework was in terms of increasing the number of science teachers.
This problem has largely been solved. For example, the rate of
vacancies for science teachers in secondary schools has fallen
to 0.9% in January this year. However, we have continuing concerns
about the quality of science teaching and I, therefore, met with
Lord Adonis to discuss ways of improving this. We have set out
important further actions in the Science and Innovation Investment
Framework Next Steps published in March, and the DfES has set
up a School Science Programme Board, on which OSI has membership,
to take forward delivery of these.
Q168 Chairman: Were you consulted
about those targets before they were set?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes.
Those came out of discussions that I had with Lord Adonis and
with the Treasury as to whether we were making sufficient progress.
The issue here, which has become increasingly clear, is not the
number of teachers but whether you have physics teachers teaching
physics and chemistry teachers teaching chemistry. There are some
problems there, and that is why we have set some specific targets
in terms of those subject areas.
Q169 Chairman: One of the concerns
the Committee has are exactly the same concerns you had, and the
former Committee also had, in terms of STEM subjects—and
we will return to that later in terms of universities—with
26% of teachers with a physics degree and 22% of chemistry teachers
with a chemistry degree retiring in the next five to 10 years
I do not see how on earth you can meet the targets which you have
set.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In
terms of numbers, you can see we are actually doing quite well.
If you look at the figures we are more than meeting the targets
for the number of teachers coming in if you take the total number
of people coming through different routes of entry. If you take
the conventional initial teacher training places but add on the
employment based routes, in 2004-05 we recruited 3,640 as opposed
to a target of 3,225, so the numbers are there. The question is
to make certain that we give the right incentives for physics
and chemistry people to come in and do what we are doing, which
is to see whether we can have conversion courses where we give
people incentives to train further in the subject areas where
we need them.
Q170 Chairman: The bigger point to
my question is did you calculate in this demographic trend that
we are going to see an awful lot of experienced chemistry and
physics teachers actually retire, so as fast as you are recruiting
we are losing more people at the other end rather than increasing
the pool. Has that been calculated in?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: What
we have calculated are the targets overall for the numbers we
need. We have set targets within that of specifically increasing
those subject areas. We will be measuring our performance against
not the numbers coming in but the number of courses being taught
by the relevant specialisms.
Q171 Chairman: Are you confident
that the financial incentives that you have in place are sufficient
to actually meet the targets? £1,000 does not seem to be
a huge incentive at the end of the day. Are there other incentives
in the pipeline?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We
have the different incentives, which we have given to you, which
are differentiated as follows: mathematics and science you get
the £9,000 bursary plus £5,000 gold hello; for secondary
shortage subjects such as modern languages you get the £9,000
bursary plus £2,500 golden hello; for secondary non-shortage
and primary it is a £6,000 bursary. There is a considerable
difference there. Of course, we are asking the School Teachers
Review Body to consider whether there are ways in which existing
teachers' pay flexibilities could be used better to improve retention
of science and mathematics teachers. That is an issue to focus
on: whether they come back and say they can be more flexible in
relation to these key subjects.
Q172 Chairman: Is research going
on within your department or is it just the DfES which is tracking
that to see whether those incentives are actually working?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
DfES is responsible for producing the figures and tracking them,
but we obviously have a look at those as well because we want
to make certain that the Science and Innovation Framework targets
are being met.
Q173 Chairman: You are confident
that by 2014 we will have met the targets in terms of 3,000 extra
physics and chemistry teachers, and also met the targets in terms
of Key Stage 4 students being offered chemistry, physics and biology
as separate subjects. You have no worries about that.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No,
I did not say that. I would say these are realistic targets to
achieve, and whether we achieve them or not will depend upon vigorously
following this track and making these incentives work.
Q174 Chairman: You mentioned about
CPD of teachers actually transferring from one area to another,
and clearly that is something the Committee would strongly support,
but teachers have actually said to me that a lot of that work
has either to be done in their own time or indeed there are few
incentives for them to do it. There is no incentive to give up
a responsibility post in modern languages to train as a physics
teacher. Are you looking at that particular area?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
do not think anyone is talking in terms of moving people from
foreign languages to teaching physics. The question is whether
we can take some of the large numbers of people with biology qualifications
and get them to transfer across. It is a question of whether we
introduce incentives to make that worthwhile for people to do.
Q175 Chairman: There are no incentives
at the moment?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
do not think there are any incentives at the moment but I need
to check that point. That is something which is being looked at.
Q176 Dr Iddon: I have concerns about
practical skills of teachers who are teaching science. One of
the things that always attracted me as a student to chemistry
particularly, and other sciences as well, was the ability of teachers
to pass on their practical skills by way of demonstrating the
experiments and then ensuring that the experiments were actually
carried out. When we looked at 14 to 19 science education, we
heard from a lot of students that teachers more and more are giving
up the practical lessons because they were, for example, getting
behind in the theoretical syllabus. Is anyone monitoring the quality
and the extent of practical work in secondary schools in particular?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
very much agree with you that a good level of experiments and
demonstrations are a key part of science education. If you talk
to scientists and ask them why they first became involved in science,
it seems to me they very rarely say "I read this book"
but usually say "I liked growing crystals" or "I
liked demonstrations" or "I collected", whatever
it was; therefore, it is very important. It is also pretty much
agreed that the level of experiments and demonstrations is too
low in most schools. The area of debate is what are the reasons
for that. There are a number of reasons given which vary from
health and safety regulations through to discipline in class,
and so on. I suspect there are probably two reasons: one is too
much pressure on the curriculum, and the other is the qualifications
of the teachers, i.e. if you are not properly qualified in physics
you will not have inspired teaching, and inspired teaching in
this context would also include experiments because you yourself
may be rather scared of doing these experiments because you do
not know your subject very well. I think getting up the levels
of teacher qualifications is probably the first requirement.,
and the second is to have a little more room in the curriculum,
which the new curriculum will, so that experiments can be put
in.
Q177 Dr Iddon: You would agree with
me that science is a particularly demanding subject particularly
in the laboratory aspects. What we need in secondary schools is
good back-up from well qualified technicians to help the teachers,
and to prepare the laboratory ahead of the teacher going in, which
is fundamental and essential. Do you think we are training enough
technicians with the right skills to assist teachers in the laboratory?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: To
be clear about that, one of the things we are doing with the Science
Learning Centres is to include technicians in that area, because
I think raising the level of training of the technicians is also
part of this whole issue. Again, if you are doing experiments,
having good technicians clearly is very helpful.
Q178 Chairman: Could we move now
from schools to nuclear power? When will the government announce
its plans regarding possible nuclear new build?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
Energy Review's remit is to review the UK's progress against the
medium and long-term Energy White Paper goals and consider options
for further steps to achieve them. It is exploring aspects of
energy supply and demand focusing on policy measures beyond 2010.
On the supply side, we are examining the potential role of a wide
range of generating technologies, including renewables, cleaner
coal technologies, gas and civil nuclear power. We are setting
the enormous amount of evidence received in response to the Energy
Review consultation, and the Review will report in the summer.
Q179 Dr Turner: When the Prime Minister
said in a recent speech that "nuclear power is back on the
agenda with a vengeance", this gave some credence to the
views of many cynics that the Energy Review was never more than
a cloak to make a decision to build new nuclear power stations.
Is there any substance to that? Has a decision been made? Has
the Review always been pre-determined in this respect?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
Prime Minister only reiterated what he said previously to the
CBI, what Malcolm Wicks has said throughout the Review, and indeed
what Alistair Darling has also said, that nuclear power is an
option which cannot be ignored. I have to say that is rather a
statement of the obvious. He also, in that statement, put nuclear
power alongside renewables and energy efficiency as options on
the agenda. I do not think that is pre-judging it. To say it is
on the agenda is a statement of the obvious.
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