Letters: Science in schools
The number of children studying the most traditional science subjects
may be in decline, but the picture is dramatically different for psychology.
Psychology at A level is the fastest growing subject and the ratio of
applicants to university places is now in the region of 40:1. It is worth
noting that more women are choosing to study psychology than men.
But why has psychology become so popular? We have asked a large group
of applicants and a large group of first year undergraduates what had fired
their enthusiasm to study psychology. The most important factor to emerge
was ‘information via the media’. We at The British Psychological Society
take our media relations on behalf of the discipline very seriously. We
feel there is a lesson here for other sciences.
Ann Colley British Psychological Society Leicester
Letters: Science in schools
I managed to get into an old polytechnic (recently made into a university)
with only two A levels at E grade; no clearing, just straight in. Does this
mean my course is for those ‘scrapings’ whose abilities in biology are vocational,
not purely academic as at the ‘proper’ universities? This sort of bigotry
could be one of the reasons why scientists are on a low social scale: if
you are not from one of the well known universities and have X number of
high grade A levels you get accused of being a scraping.
A lot of mature students have not got A levels but years of practical
experience in science and engineering. Are these scrapings too?
P. M. Willgoss Toxteth, Liverpool
Letters: Science in schools
Recently much has been made of the fall in students entering university
to study physics. As a sixth-former applying to university, I believe that
the problem is the approach of the physics A level.
Physics is presented as a series of seemingly unconnected phenomena,
each defined as a set of equations. Not enough basic principles are taught
to enable students to see these events as all obeying the same fundamental
laws of nature.
This is not the case with all A levels. The maths course, for example,
builds on techniques and knowledge to tackle new problems and situations.
Students, including myself, would not want to spend the next four years
studying physics if it is to be as boring as the A level.
Sam Peacock Sheffield
Letters: Quarry quandary
Oliver Tickell has let his emotions run away with his facts in his article
advocating higher taxes on the quarrying industry (Forum, 23 October). The
truth is a little less sensational.
Quarrying does not cause ‘monstrous environmental damage’ – it is a
very small and discreet user of land, usually well screened from view and
only occupying 0.3 per cent of the land area of England. Because the rate
of satisfactory restoration exceeds the rate of extraction, the overall
land area affected declined by 8 per cent between 1982 and 1988. The figure
of 100 sites of special scientific interest being affected by old planning
permissions is a myth. A detailed check of the sites listed by Friends of
the Earth puts this figure as not likely to exceed 14 sites even on a worst-case
scenario.
To claim that quarrying companies pay nothing for their assault on the
environment is to ignore totally the 20 to 30 items of primary legislation
which control quarrying and which require costly measures to protect the
environment by, for example, landscaped screen mounds and noise cladding
on plant and equipment.
To claim that only 1 million tonnes of demolition waste gets crushed
and recycled each year is a wilful misreading of the Arup research which
actually shows 51 per cent re-use.
Finally, to claim that his suggested 拢5 per tonne levy would
be modest is naive when this would mean a doubling of sale prices and thus
increased costs for houses, shops, schools, hospitals and roads. Such a
levy would, moreover, have little effect on market penetration of the secondary
materials – it is specification and environmental problems that are holding
back greater use of these.
Duncan Pollock British Aggregate Construction Materials Industries London
Letters: Japan still leads
David Hamilton’s recent review of my book Silicon Samurai (2 October)
presents a view of the information technology industry that must be challenged,
lest readers come away with the wrong impression that Japan is finished
and that the West is posed to recapture lost markets.
Hamilton seems to think that improvements in the performance of a few
US semiconductor makers, plus the launch of a handful of new US consumer
electronics products, mean that the Japanese electronics industry is now
‘irrelevant’.
This is nonsense. Look inside some of the new products: the Apple Newton
Message Pad is in fact made by Sharp and the Apple Powerbook 100 was made
by Sony. Hewlett-Packard printers have Canon engines in them.
The microprocessor and memory chips, disk drives and monitors for Sun
workstations are made by Fujitsu. What is really happening is that Western
electronics companies are being ‘hollowed out’ – their new products are
either wholly manufactured in Japan or rely heavily on Japanese components.
How many people know that 98 per cent of the world’s LCD screens are
made in Japan and that one Japanese company (Kyocera) supplies more than
half the world’s ceramic chip packages?
Despite the recession, Japan’s technological strength appears to be
growing; Canon, Hitachi and Toshiba recently took the top three places in
US-based CHI Research’s annual survey of the ‘technological strength’ of
global companies, while a study by PA Consulting found that five Japanese
industries ranked in the world top ten overall in R & D spending.
Hamilton misrepresents my views by saying that I ‘heap praise’ in the
book on Japanese efforts to develop analogue high-definition television
and that I ‘disparage’ US efforts. In fact, in this instance, I state that
‘. . . the Japanese are saddled with a huge investment in outdated technology,
while the US might end up with the best system in the world . . .’
But just suppose that the US digital system is successful, guess who
is most likely to be the manufacturer of the TVs and their components? Readers
can find the likely answer in my book, not in Hamilton’s ostrich-like postures.
Tom Forester Griffith University Brisbane, Australia
Letters: Eyes have it
Mine eyes (and yours) tell me that your illustration of a leopard’s
spots (‘Let T equal tiger’, 6 November) is but a leopard clad in a jaguar’s
coat.
Geoffrey Stanford Dallas Nature Centre Dallas, Texas, US
Letters: Science in schools
Re your editorial concerning John Patten’s desire to increase the number
of scientists in higher education (4 December). In the last two years I
have spent time visiting various career fairs throughout the country. When
I ask students who are doing science at A level why they do not wish to
study science at University there are two very simple answers. One is that
science is seen to be hard, the other is that the rewards for studying it
are not seen to be commensurate with the effort.
Tinkering with random bits of the education system to try to correct
this is not going to help. The problem with A level is that it was designed
as a course to follow the old GCE O-level syllabus. When GCSE was introduced,
a consequent change in the education for 16 to 18-year-olds should have
taken place.
Many science departments are keen to attract more students and feel
that it might be appropriate to make the first year at university less demanding.
However, the consequence must be that for students to achieve the same standards
in knowledge and skill they must be allowed to do four-year degrees.
Alan Camina University of East Anglia Norwich
Letters: Science in schools
To say that science is in decline does not surprise me. May I suggest
that this trend could possibly have something to do with science subjects
being hard and, after much work and study at university, there are very
few jobs and the dole queue awaits the unsuspecting – just like me.
As an honours graduate of chemistry with industrial experience, I thought
naively that I would be able to get a job. In reality, out of 60 applications
in six months I have had three interviews and many letters of rejection.
Maybe the blunt truth of this is that there is no incentive to enter
science.
N. Lord Spennymoor County Durham
Letters: Science in schools
Should we not try to discover the perceptions that students have of
the different vocations and the people who follow them? I suspect that they
see scientists as ‘brainy but bloodless’. If this proves to be the case,
it should not surprise us. Students have little contact with science outside
the classrooms and school laboratories. On the other hand, the whole purpose
of the arts world is to present itself to the public and most children experience
this before their second birthday.
The media is, quite naturally, dominated by people from the arts side
– and it shows. Take any newspaper, popular magazine, TV or radio programme
and note the attention given to pop stars, actors, writers, producers, artists,
musicians. My rough estimate is that science gets less than 5 per cent of
the attention given to the arts and that the scientists involved are just
peripheral clutter. What matters is the promise or (even better) the menace
of their latest gizmo. I see no hint of the interest, satisfaction and (yes)
fun that I enjoyed for 44 years. A ‘life devoted to science’ must seem pretty
sterile to the average teenager.
C. Jackson Wylam, Northumberland
Letters: Science in schools
It is in the interests of the country to have a scientifically literate
population. The introduction of the national curriculum in science, once
the first 5-year-olds exit from the system in 2001, will provide a firm
foundation for this. What we must ensure is that sufficient well qualified
and talented people follow scientific studies: quality is a far more important
argument than quantity.
In chemistry the percentage of 18-year-olds taking A level has increased
from 5.6 per cent in 1989 to 6.4 per cent in 1993, while over the same period
the number of graduates with chemistry based degrees has risen from 2981
to nearly 3900. This is an encouraging trend, but no one should be complacent,
as there is much more we can do.
Neville Reed Royal Society of Chemistry London
Letters: Science in schools
Your editorial states: ‘Students will not want to take two or three
A/S levels as well as a couple of A levels because A levels are what count
with universities and employers.’
As Patten is committed to retaining A levels, he must take positive
action to make A/S levels more attractive. There are two easy ways of doing
this.
First, to accept that two A/S levels are more demanding than a single
A level and to recognise this by giving additional weighting to A/S levels.
I suggest 7,5,4,3 and 2 points instead of the 5,4,3,2 and 1 as now.
Secondly, to ask universities to quote their requirements in the UCAS
handbook in points and not as A-level grades. This is done by many universities
already.
Schools and pupils would then see that there is an advantage (and not
a disadvantage as now) in taking A/S levels alongside one or two A-level
subjects.
Peter Hughes Westminster School London