Teacher Recruitment

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 30 June 2008.

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Photo of Nick Gibb Nick Gibb Shadow Minister (Education) (Schools) 2:30, 30 June 2008

Does the Minister accept, however, the basic premise of today's report from the university of Buckingham on the supply of science and physics teachers, referred to by Simon Hughes: that the drive in schools towards general science at the expense of the three separate sciences—biology, chemistry and physics—is the underlying cause of the 10-year decline in the numbers taking A-level physics, which have fallen from 29,000 in 1997 to 24,000 last year? Only a quarter of comprehensive schools teach the three separate sciences. Does he agree with us that every child should be entitled to study the three separate sciences to GCSE, regardless of his or her performance at key stage 3 and regardless of the idiosyncrasies of particular school governing bodies?