A Comprehensive Education

Why merging science GCSEs in Wales will lead to dumbing down

Rishi Sunak would see pupils in England studying more maths, but in Wales the Welsh Government would prefer that pupils study less science.

Education and skills are a key component of social mobility, so it’s in everyone’s best interests if schools and colleges provide a good educational grounding for whatever career someone sets their sights on. But after a quarter of a century of Welsh Labour, Wales continues to lag behind the rest of the UK nations in educational standards such as PISA scores.

So a shakeup of GCSEs by Qualifications Wales has been announced, including the controversial plan is to combine the separate subjects of biology, chemistry and physics into a single combined GCSE ‘the sciences’.

One Cardiff headteacher has said that it was “absolutely vital” that GCSEs change to meet the needs of young people by providing a broad, balanced curriculum, as well as the need for “a balanced mix of assessment methods, with less emphasis on exams.”

I partly agree with her. Yes to a broad skills mix, but not at the expense of diluting core subjects which have been around since Aristotle, Pythagoras, Tapputi, and Newton.

The skills involved in those three subjects are quite different and yes, dear reader I do know what I’m talking about! And it is a view shared by others including Dr Lowri Mainwaring of Cardiff Metropolitan University who worries “about the message combining those three GCSEs together will give pupils.”

“This dumbing down” suggests that science is “maybe not as important as it should be” at a time when we have seen the ingenuity of science and scientists in developing vaccines.

While creating more space on the curriculum for pupils to study other subjects is understandable, surely this should not be at the expense of core subjects which could lead to fewer pupils studying A-levels and degrees in sciences, leading to even greater knowledge gaps.

In defence of the proposal, Catrin Verrall of Qualifications Wales said that “around 20 per cent of schools in Wales don’t offer the separate science GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics…so we’re adopting a common GCSE offer for all learners in Wales and that would support greater equality of opportunity.”

Admirable? Possibly. But surely this confirms dumbing down rather levelling up? An edict which means that since not everyone has the choice, let’s make sure no-one does. Shouldn’t equality of opportunity mean offering the 20 per cent the option of studying what the other 80 per cent already are?

As an aside, new GCSEs will be created in subjects including ‘film and digital studies’. True, we need a broad range of skills in our workforce but, for the moment, does this mean physics teachers will need to retrain to know more about Steven Spielberg than Marie Curie? Or will their services simply no longer be required? If you only have a single science subject do you really need three separate subject teachers?

At a time when we need to be raising standards in Wales there are concerns voiced by people including Eluned Parrott of the Institute of Physics that “we have to make sure that the value and the quality of the qualifications that Welsh students get are comparable to those in other parts of the UK and other parts of the world.”

Qualifications Wales states that it was “still open to the possibility of developing other made-for-Wales qualifications to sit alongside the new GCSE science qualification”. I fear that this is too inward looking. A qualification for Wales might only be good in Wales.

With poor PISA scores it looks like the proposal is to ensure that in future straightforward comparisons can no longer be made. In Sir Humphrey speak “periodically re-structure the base from which the statistics are derived without drawing public attention to the fact.” Or, in the words of Jim Hacker, “fiddle the figures.” Possibly the only maths Welsh Labour is good at.

Wales has produced people who have made important contributions to the advancement of our understanding of science. Many names long-forgotten or, worse, never taught to us in school, and they are worth remembering:

·       Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), from Llanbadoc, worked alongside Charles Darwin on the theory of evolution. What would he make of this backwards approach to broadening our children’s minds?

·       Edward George Bowen (1911-1991), born in Swansea, worked on developing early radar, and his work lead to the creation of the microwave. Popty ping, anyone?

·       Frances Hoggan, nee Morgan (1843-1927), from Brecon, became the first British-trained woman on the General Medical Council. Carry On Doctor.

·       Sir David Brunt (1886-1965), from Montgomeryshire, studied maths, physics and chemistry, and his work in weather forecasting led to him being named “the father of meteorology”. Eat your heart out, Derek Brockway.

·       David Edwards Hughes (1831-1900), from Bala, invented the microphone and was the first person to send Morse code over a radio signal. What no music industry?

·       William Robert Grove (1811-96), born in Swansea, educated at Oxford, was a lawyer, scientist and inventor of the fuel cell, otherwise known as the battery. Where would Elon Musk be without him?

·       Dr Lyn Evans (b.1945), from Aberdare, project lead for the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Think a future where warp-speed space travel is possible.

There are plenty more examples, but with this attempted dilution of science in Wales, who will be the next Bowen, Brunt, Grove or Evans?

Qualifications Wales held a consultation about what is actually taught within the new GCSEs and how they are assessed, while also giving schools flexibility over which subject areas they teach. In other words it will still offer built-in disparity of who gets taught what and how they are assessed, dependent on where they live. There’s nothing like equality of opportunity and, true to form, this is nothing like it.

Add to that that secondary schools can delay implementation for a year due to the pandemic and we get the added bonus of a staggered approach to implementing whatever is finally decided.

The results of a recent consultation by Opinion Research Services on behalf of Qualifications Wales showed a “fairly equal split in reactions” to the plans for the new science GCSE, with 42% in favour and 40% against. This was based on a resounding 355 respondents.

With the new qualifications taking effect from 2025, when you consider that there are approximately 110,000 pupils aged 11-13 years (the ‘guinea pig year’ as my group was described when GCSEs replaced O-levels), 180 secondary schools and 25,000 qualified teachers, you would hope that more people would take part.

I realise that the sciences aren’t for everyone, but do not dilute these subjects for those who do have the aptitude. Countries such as Estonia have upgraded vocational education and training, while Germany emphasises high-quality technical education. We too need our schools and colleges to broaden their offer but not at the expense of core subjects recognised the world over.

Jeremy Miles, Minister for Education and Welsh Language, is encouraging teachers, parents, pupils and employers to: “have your say to help shape future qualifications.”

I hope that people do take part. Otherwise, thanks to Welsh Labour, in a few years’ time children in Wales will need a comprehensive education to make up for their Comprehensive education.