News

PHYSICS IN TERMINAL DECLINE?

Friday 11 August 2006

Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson

In CEER's latest report, published 11 August 2006 and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson show that the decline in physics as student numbers fall and university departments shut is more serious than is generally appreciated.

Since 1982 A-level physics entries have halved. Only just over 3.8 per cent of 16-year-olds took A-level physics in 2004 compared with about 6 per cent in 1990.

More than a quarter (from 57 to 42) of universities with significant numbers of physics undergraduates have stopped teaching the subject since 1994, while the number of home students on first-degree physics courses has decreased by more than 28 per cent. Even in the 26 elite universities with the highest ratings for research the trend in student numbers has been downwards.

Fewer graduates in physics than in the other sciences are training to be teachers, and a fifth of those are training to be maths teachers. A-level entries have fallen most sharply in FE colleges where 40 per cent of the feeder schools lack anyone who has studied physics to any level at university.

The report poses the questions: are we as a nation content with what is happening to the 'queen of sciences' and if not what can be done about it?

The full report can be read in PDF format at: physicsprint-2.pdf (239 KB).

Report by the Web Team