Well, it seems the lunacy continues. Not least at the BBC, whose science program 'Horizon' is now officially an asylum for the most certifiable snake-oil sellers and conspiracy theorists.
Our illustrious Government is concerned that schoolchildren are not taking science subjects, particularly physics. At long last, there seems to be some acceptance that the removal of practical classes (by overzealous health and safety idiots) and the pressure on schools to ensure pupils pass (which leads to a ‘teach to test’ approach) has destroyed school science. I think someone in charge might have woken up a little, although it might be too late.
Meanwhile, Reading University’s physics department is to close.
There are protests and calls to keep it open, but the end is assured for this department. No physicist will apply for a job, and no student will apply for a place, in a department that’s threatened with closure.
The threat alone is enough to ensure the department’s demise. Already, chemistry deparments have closed in the UK, and the trend towards cheap-to-teach subjects continues.
So why bother teaching the UK children science? In a few years, there won’t be any university places for them to graduate into. They might as well spend their time in that refuge of the mindless, ‘media studies’.
We’ll have a whole generation who know how to put together a reality-TV show. Fortunately for the rest of us, none of them will know how to fix their transmitter when it breaks down.
1 comment:
Science was always an interest of mine, although I ignored most classes in history. Now, I spend a lot of time researching old buildings and photographing stone circles.
It can't be right to force people to choose at 16 what they want to specialise in. As I recall, at 16 I was most interested in home-made bombs and beer (a strange quirk of UK alcohol law: it was illegal to buy beer at 16, but a home-made beer kit was legal. The kit contained no alcohol when it was sold.)
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