Industry News
Tories attack government's science record
Posted on 25th January 2008
The Conservative Party yesterday attacked the government's record on recruiting scientists to the teaching profession.
A recent study for the Nuffield Foundation found that independent schools are more likely than their state counterparts to have teachers with physics or chemistry degrees. It also discovered that private schools employ better qualified staff than maintained schools.
Fee-charging schools have managed to recruit these specialist staff despite the number of science graduates entering the profession dropping by a third since 1998, according to figures published by the Tories.
The opposition's statistics show there were 1,070 newly-qualified science teachers with a science degree in 1998 but that the figure dropped to 660 in 2005-06.
Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said the figures were a "very worrying development" and a sign that government policy had damaged science teaching.
The presence of the specialist teachers in private schools is perhaps reflected in the high acceptance rate of their pupils on to science, maths and technology degree courses.
Figures compiled by the Independent Schools Council show more than 80 per cent of pupils from its member schools who applied for a place on such a degree course at a Russell Group university in 2007 were accepted.