THE GOVERNMENT’S back-sliding on its commitment to the national curriculum
is rapidly turning into a rout. Last week, education secretary John MacGregor
suggested that parts of the national curriculum might be made optional –
art and music were two examples quoted – in order to allow students to concentrate
on the subject considered more ‘important’.
Among the latter subjects, he made clear, were the three separate sciences
of physics, chemistry and biology. A week earlier, he had agreed that these
could continue to be taken by some students, even after the new double award
GCSE ‘balanced science’, which is meant to form one of the cornerstones
of the national curriculum, had been introduced (This Week, 28 July). The
omens for much-needed reforms do not look promising.
MacGregor has done little to disguise the fact that his change of heart
has resulted largely from protests from schools. Despite support from the
Association for Science Education, many individual science teachers, particularly
in independent schools, continue to oppose the changes. Some argue that
they will lead to a dilution of standards; others – more pragmatically –
that schools lack the resources to teach all types of science to all types
Both arguments have important elements of truth. One of the ironies
of the current situation, however, is that the new course structure being
proposed in the national curriculum has the support of virtually all the
major professional scientific bodies, ranging from the Royal Society to
the Institute of Biology. While pushing the case for science to occupy a
central place in the modern curriculum, they have also argued strongly about
the dangers of overemphasising scientific subjects. After all, scientists,
like others, need a rounded education, and currently suffer more in Britain
than in any other Western country from the side effects of early specialisation.
There is, therefore, a strong argument in favour of the government’s
original proposal that most students taking the national curriculum through
to GCSE should spend about 20 per cent of their time studying science. Now,
it seems, there will be a three-tier system on offer. The brightest students
– or those with the richest parents – will continue, as before, to opt for
a cluster of science-based options at the age of 14. Those with little interest
in such subjects (the government’s previous intention that this should be
no more than a ‘small minority’ has aparently been modified) will be tempted
to follow the government’s so-called ‘Model B’ course in balanced science,
taking up only 12.5 per cent of the curriculum time.
Stranded in the middle will be the original Model A balanced science
option. The danger here is that, caught uncomfortably between the other
two options, Model A will shrivel through lack of support. If this happens,
then the important reforms it embodies, the result of more than a decade
of work by science educationists, will have been thrown out of the window.
Some science teachers may say that this is precisely what they would like
to see. They should recognise it as an unwelcome step backwards.