Growing science for future generations
The Welsh Government has always been keen, given its support of science as a way of growing Wales’ prosperity and well-being, to encourage activities which provide young people with a positive and memorable experience of science and engineering.
Consequently, I am pleased to see that the ‘Endgame’ team from Merthyr’s Caedraw Primary School made spectacular progress through the Jaguar Primary Schools Challenge, to emerge as overall UK champions, as well as capturing three class wins, for fastest car, best verbal presentation and best designed car.
In addition to offering my own congratulations to all four pupils concerned, their teachers and supporters, I hope they will capitalise on their success and remain interested and engaged with science and engineering as they progress through their careers. It was particularly pleasing to see a second Merthyr primary school, Gwaunfarren, winning the sponsorship and marketing trophy.
It is important for all of us in Wales to have a better appreciation and general understanding of what and how science and technologies bring for societal, as well as economic benefit. It is difficult to make informed choices without having such an understanding. They impact on so many aspects of our lives today, from personalised medicine to our ubiquitous and difficult-to-live-without smartphones.
The Welsh Government, as with many other countries, has a very clear and real reason for wanting more children and young people to get interested in science, technology, engineering and maths.
Put simply, Wales needs future generations of scientifically-literate and qualified people to run the technology businesses and industries of tomorrow. To deliver this will demand more young people with experience of STEM subjects – and hopefully choosing to continue studying them to a higher level, now and in the coming years, for the benefit of Wales.
We know that there has been a problem for some years in the take-up of some science subjects by girls – physics and computer science being the most problematic. As a small smart country we cannot, however, afford to miss out or side-line this generational talent, so we have been supporting a number of programmes, operated by Learned Societies, private companies and by schools and universities to help bring about this change.
As part of my new role of Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales, I oversee the team that runs the National Science Academy (NSA). This has been operating since 2010 and has delivered several impressive outputs, despite the relatively small amount of funding at its disposal – broadly about £1m per year. More than £4.4m has been invested since 2012 involving nearly 70 projects and over 1,000 STEM enrichment activities provided to over 132,000 students/ participants.
Some 1,300 teachers have also benefitted from STEM professional development events. Professional learning in communicating research training has been given to more than 57 researchers, 41 of these were female, so they can act as more effective role models to the next generation.
NSA is also proud to have subsidised more than 4,500 British Science Association CREST Awards made to Welsh pupils and overall some 11,500 CREST Awards have been made in Wales – a very encouraging situation.
The latest ambitious enrichment programme that is closely aligned to formal STEM education, aims to raise the percentage of students studying triple science GCSEs (biology, chemistry, physics). Without these GCSEs it is harder to progress onto A-level sciences and subsequent university study.
With a total budget of £7.2m comprising Welsh Government and European Structural Funds via WEFO, the programme will be delivered across Wales to increase uptake and attainment levels in STEM subjects by 11-19-year-olds – specifically by encouraging taking of GCSE triple science.
This new programme will provide targeted STEM enrichment activities for pupils aged 11 to 13 from 20-30 schools located in the west Wales and valleys area. There will be three academic years of these activities.
Unique to this programme is the opportunity to demonstrate how effective these STEM engagement activities are, beyond anecdotal information from surveys. It will be running an internationally groundbreaking longitudinal research study, tracking pupils aged 11 to 13 that will show the impact of this investment in Wales’s future in providing’ STEM engagement and enrichment activities.