Science gentrified by middle-class pupils

The sciences are becoming increasingly middle-class subjects as more private school pupils choose them at A-level and more comprehensive school students give them up, a leading academic warned yesterday.

The trend is leading to a "gentrification" of the sciences, reversing their 1960s role as an academic avenue to success for bright working class boys, according to Professor Alan Smithers of Brunel University, Middlesex.

Modern-day youngsters were losing the opportunities which had allowed poorer grammar school boys to shine and created a "generation of distinguished 20th century scientists from working class backgrounds".

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Association for Science Education, Professor Smithers said a difference in the exams taken at 16 in independent and state schools lay behind the change.

While the vast majority of comprehensives offer only the "double award" science, which includes physics, biology and chemistry and counts for two GCSE grades, private schools - which do not have to follow the national curriculum and so have more flexible timetables - usually also offer the sciences as separate subjects.

Figures show students taking separate sciences at GCSE are more likely than those taking the double award to progress to science A-levels, skewing the numbers towards selective schools.

The trend has also led to an overall fall in the numbers of A-level students specialising in the sciences, from nearly half in 1962 to less than 17 per cent in 1994.

Professor Smithers said the decline had happened despite a dramatic rise in the numbers of pupils studying science up to age 16 over the last 15 years. More investigation was needed to discover why success in raising take-up at GCSE was not feeding through to A-level.

One consequence of the drop in numbers of science specialists is a shortage of scientists seeking a career in teaching.

Figures released last month by the Teacher Training Agency revealed an 11 per cent shortfall in the recruitment of science teachers, even though target numbers have been substantially lowered by the Government.

Labour claimed the failure to recruit had created a "ticking time bomb" in the form of a future shortage of qualified teachers in key specialisms, including science.

Professor Smithers suggested the current A-level science courses attracted specialists who loved their subject but "tended not to be person-oriented" and were unlikely to go into teaching.

More could be encouraged to enter the profession with incentives such as higher salaries and regular sabbaticals, allowing them to catch up on the latest scientific developments.