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@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Physics 'could die out
in state schools' due to lack of teachers Physics is in danger of dying out in most state schools within a decade because of a shortage of qualified teachers and a perception that the subject is difficult, a study published yesterday found. Over the past 15 years, the numbers taking physics at A-level had fallen by 38 per cent, chiefly because most of those teaching it did not know enough to instruct, let alone enthuse, their pupils. "It is one of the most striking and disturbing trends in education," said Prof Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson of Buckingham University, who carried out the study. "We may be in danger of sleepwalking into the loss of one of the great branches of knowledge from our schools. "If physics is to survive, both as essential education and a platform for higher level study and research, there is a need for urgent action." They found that half those teaching physics had not studied the subject beyond A-level. Those who had were concentrated in grammar and independent schools, which produced the largest numbers of A-level entrants and achieved the best results. Of those teaching physics up to GCSE - where the subject has been largely subsumed into "combined science" - more than a third had not studied it beyond GCSE. "Pupil performance at GCSE and A-level varies across institutions in parallel with teacher qualifications," the report said. One teacher involved with the study said: "Non-specialists convey the impression that the subject is difficult because of their own unfamiliarity with it. This instils prejudice and creates problems that can often not be rectified later." Pupils who studied physics as a separate subject at GCSE were far more likely to take it at A-level than those who studied combined science. But while 78 per cent of independent schools offered GCSE physics, only 20 per cent of comprehensives did so. Typically, physics teachers were male and ageing. They were being replaced by biologists, who were young and female and did not know enough about the subject to secure its future. The study predicted that without adequate replacements the subject could disappear from comprehensive schools - where 80 per cent of pupils are taught - within 10 years. Lord May, president of the Royal Society, said: "The Government
needs to wake up to the problems facing science education."
The Department for Education said that it was "doing huge amounts"
to reverse the trend, including offering trainee physics teachers
up to £14,000 in bursaries and "golden hellos". @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Leader:
We must save physics We can't allow physics to be phased out. (see www) Here is something that ought to concern us all: not just the professional educationalists and politicians among us, not just the science graduates. The near-disappearance of physics from our sixth-form classrooms will have a tangible, long-term and deleterious impact on our way of life. Most obviously, it is further proof of the cretinisation of our syllabus. We are witnessing a migration away from hard subjects - hard not only in the sense of "difficult", but also in the sense of having definite right and wrong answers. The sciences, like languages, are empirical, being based on the assimilation of quantifiable knowledge. If you don't know your subject, it shows, and not even the kindest invigilator can give you the benefit of the doubt.
To them, Britain was the most modern of nations - restless, quizzical and enterprising. British inventors, more than those of any other country, have changed the way people live. Trinity College, Cambridge, home to many of the scientists listed above, has produced more Nobel prize-winners than the whole of France. It could be objected that physics is not for everybody: after all, many of Britain's greatest inventors emerged when the teaching of science was rudimentary, and schooling itself was not universal. Why should thousands of youngsters trudge through physics A-levels for the sake of one or two potential Rutherfords? The answer has to do with the purpose of education. If our aim is to teach young people how to make sense of the world around them, nothing is so important as the learning of science. Much of life is, in the narrowest sense of the word, counter-intuitive. Our brains are designed to make sense of the environment in which we evolved. They take short-cuts that were useful enough on the savannahs of Pleistocene Africa, but are a handicap today. We find it hard to accept, for example, that items of different
weights fall at the same speed. We find it almost impossible accurately
to reckon probability. We cannot begin to visualise what goes on
in space, let alone inside atoms. As that other great British scientist,
JBS Haldane, put it: "The universe is not only queerer than
we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose." The bizarre
nature of our world cannot be inferred; it must be taught. If it
is not, we are all made poorer.
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