As a sixth-year pupil applying to study physics at university, I wrote this article for Culturewars.org.uk on declining numbers of students studying science.
With constantly decreasing student numbers for science A-Levels, the closure of ten university physics departments in the past ten years and bleak predictions from the Royal Society that there could be as few as six chemistry departments left in Britain within the next ten years, it is clear that science has never been less popular. But have we really lost curiosity about the nature of the world around us, and lost the desire to expand the boundaries of human knowledge?
As one of the few advanced science students from my school (from a physics class of three, beating applied maths' pair) and one of an even smaller number planning to continue with undergraduate science study, I feel I can confidently answer this question. Those who choose to continue their study are doing so not because of an exciting syllabus which generously relates the abstract theories of science to 'everyday life', but in spite of it. What this frequently reformed and degraded curriculum offers to the budding scientist is mediocrity. Unless you are lucky enough to chance upon an inspirational teacher willing to curb the rules a bit, you are unlikely to keep up any interest in the subject.
The hunger particularly for physics and maths graduates has led the government to suggest endless changes to the syllabus and examination system and sparked a fear that pupils find science 'boring and pointless', according to a report published in 2002 by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. Undoubtedly, most students do find the science that they encounter in schools pretty boring and pointless, but this is not to say that they aren't interested in the ideas discussed in popular science.
Science is the means to revealing our universe, and if that isn't interesting in itself then no amount of cramming in explanations for MOSFET transistors and car aerials will make a difference. It is the abstract, fundamental nature of scientific ideas, and their ability elegantly to explain reality that cannot fail to capture anyone's natural curiosity.
By comparing science with the highly popular social subjects, the root of the problem is very clear. Unlike science, there is much less demand for, say, English or philosophy graduates and these subjects have not needed to undergo attempts at 'popularisation'. Students do not choose to study these subjects because of a £3000 incentive reimbursement of tuition fees (such as is proposed by the Institute of Physics) to fulfil the economy's need for engineers and drugs researchers. They choose to study because they engage with the ideas that are presented to them and they enjoy it. And the ideas are certainly there in science.
Having attended a lecture on black holes at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh where people squeezed into a full auditorium and a talk at Edinburgh University where many had to sit on the floor in awe of four NASA astronauts, I cannot believe that we have really lost interest in science. Similarly, Edinburgh has a science festival to rival, if not surpass its book festival. Not only is there evidence to contradict the idea that students find science 'boring and pointless', in fact, these levels of fascination are unmatched even by the social subjects.
The problem is that science education no longer offers escape into the world of ideas, as the arts still do to some extent, but merely reflects the depressing reality that knowledge for knowledge's sake is no longer acceptable to society. The result is that those few whose dreams have survived the mundane school syllabus and have completed a degree will find that opportunities for the really exciting research they aspired to are under-funded, few and far between. The government will then make a weak attempt to entice these disillusioned science graduates into teaching, but they are more likely to pack it in all together and become bankers.
Students don't choose to study English to get to grips with grammar or because of their fascination with the backs of Cornflakes packets. Likewise, students are not going to be encouraged to study science because they enjoy plugging numbers into equations and are amazed by catalytic converters and similar practical applications of science. If we truly want to encourage more students to enrol for science degrees, we can't try to eliminate abstract concepts and ideas from the syllabus. Indeed, we shouldn't even need to make a conscious effort to popularise science: we may have lost the ideal of education purely to satisfy our thirst for knowledge, but we certainly have not lost the thirst.