Richard Pike, Chief of the RSC has issued a statement on Science education
‘Mickey Mouse’ degree courses should be swept away, and priorities in university education and research should reflect the challenges facing the country over the forthcoming decades.
No longer should the government be paying 18-year-olds to start courses on celebrity journalism, drama with waste management, or international football business management. These courses should be kicked into touch, especially at a time when the UK is desperately short of funding research into Alzheimer’s and other diseases of ageing, alternative energy sources and wider, more effective health care provision, all of which depend on leading-edge work in the fundamental sciences.
Massive cuts in the science budget have already been announced in this country at a time when President Barack Obama is seeking $66bn, an increase of 5.9% over 2010 levels, to address the strategic priorities on the other side of the Atlantic.
The number of undergraduates studying chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics here had stayed relatively constant over many decades, and the enormous expansion witnessed in tertiary education was largely in the non-science sector. This sector, too, played a vital role in the development of the country, and our future relies on exploiting the synergies provided by a workforce with a wide range of skills, but we now need some realism over the way ahead.
We need a population with an enduring set of skills, such as an understanding of the physical world around us, literacy and communication, numeracy, how to function and continue to learn in a complex society, and above all creativity, rather than an ability to satisfy some ephemeral demand that in ten years time will be viewed as a curiosity.
To take a leaf out of the US’s book, that means that science must not be cut in the same proportion as other subjects at university, but its central role for the future of this country recognised, and funding effectively ‘ring fenced’, so that in effect it becomes a more dominant component.
This is not a question of pleading a special case; such a move is essential if we are all to enjoy the lifestyle we have become accustomed to, and to ensure that we are prepared for the changes that will affect us all in the future. '
Here here Say's I
Yup.
ReplyDeleteI am inclined to agree, too. I did computer science. Real science... we didn't even program a computer until the final project of the first year, it was theory, history, pencil and paper stuff.
Now I can pick up any computer language and apply the fundamental skills I have been taught unlike some people who can "do C#" or "know SQL". (Not that I do much of that any more!)
There was a course running parallel with mine called ITBML - "information technology, business management and a language". That was definitely a 'mickey mouse' course and I don't think the calibre of students was anywhere near as high. (One asked me in the halls kitchen: "Are those REAL mashed potatoes?" to which I replied yes of course... "Wow! How do you make them?". Ahem)