Putting science back on the right career path

Published on Friday 4 July 2008 20:49

Persuading pupils to view the subject as a serious career path is a priority for business, writes Christopher Mackie

IT IS not often that the chairman of a 45 million, stock market-listed company ends up back at school. But last month, that is exactly what happened to Ian Ritchie, head of Glasgow-based web hosting firm Iomart.

Ritchie, who also has a CBE for services to enterprise and education and sits on numerous boards and trusts, walked back through the gates of West Calder High, the school he once attended, accompanied by Scotland's chief scientific adviser, Professor Anne Glover. "It was effectively the first time I had been back in 40 years," he chuckles.

There, Ritchie spoke to pupils about his exploits as one of Scotland's foremost technological entrepreneurs of the last 25 years in an attempt to enthuse the next generation of scientists needed to work in Scotland's burgeoning life sciences and technology sector, of which he is rightly proud.

"Scotland is a very inventive country and in terms of scientific research we are one of the top three in the world," he says. "We're way ahead of England and way ahead of California in terms of scientific papers published and cited by other people."

Ritchie and Glover were at West Calder High representing Generation Science Club, which supports Generation Science, an educational offshoot of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Set up in 1991 and funded by the Scottish Government and donations from the private sector and the Edina Trust (founded to promote science in schools), Generation Science tours Scottish primary schools, offering interactive shows and workshops to bolster science education. Last academic year, the touring programme offered more than 1,500 of these events to 66,000 children across Scotland.

According to Ritchie, who is chairman of Generation Science Club, it represents a step towards meeting an increasing demand for suitable staff for the science and technology industries.

"When you ask industrialists, 'what problems do you have?', they say, 'we are having difficulty recruiting well qualified scientists and engineers'," he explains. "If that is a problem, we need to address it, so you need to get kids – the right kids – applying to do science and engineering."

Keen to expand its message to older children, Generation Science Club has begun a series of senior school visits by high-flying industry figures. Ritchie's was the second such talk after the chairman of the science festival, Dr David Milne, visited Currie High earlier this year with Dr Richard Laming.

Ritchie says that, despite its importance to Scotland's economy, science and technology are still not viewed in some circles as a prestigious career path.

"There is still quite a lot of evidence in Scotland that kids who are good at maths or get their higher physics will do accountancy or law," he says.

"The parents of bright kids will encourage them to go into these professions, but we are trying to get them to understand that science and engineering is actually a very lucrative career choice. If they do well there are lots of exciting career opportunities out there for them.

"Often, kids look at science as boring or hard. They say, 'we'd rather do media studies'. One of my messages is that you can do science and technology and then go into the media, because I have set up media companies. Having a background in technology is a great way to do it."

This view is echoed by Glover, who as the scientific adviser to the Scottish Government oversees the grants that help fund Generation Science. "One of the things we were trying to get over to the kids was that science changes your life," she explains.

"Scotland is going to be heavily dependent on science engineering and technology, so if you get our young kids excited and they see that as a future, it's going to be extremely rewarding for them."

As PR exercises go, sending Scotland's top scientist and the chairman of four technology companies to persuade pupils is impressive, but were the pupils moved?

Alison McKenzie, the principal teacher of science at West Calder High, believes so. "The pupils were really interested in what Ian had to say and were quite overwhelmed by it all," she says. "It made them realise that, although science in school is not maybe what they want to do, they could always change career later."

Breaking down the misconceptions held by some young people about scientists is one of the chief aims of the programme.

Indeed, Ritchie was amused by some of the reactions he faced at West Calder. "Kids have funny ideas of what scientists do," he says. "They assume they all wear white coats and hang around in the labs all day with test tubes. Of course, it's not like that."

This is a reaction common among pupils, according to Glover. "I asked a bunch of primary school kids to tell me what a scientist looked like and, as you can imagine, it was beard, bad hair, crazy glasses, a white coat, even a pipe," she laughs.

"If you go into any university where there are young scientists, they would be horrified at that, so we are trying to change people's conceptions of what scientists are."

Glover is dismissive of suggestions that the need for an organisation like Generation Science to dispel such myths highlights inadequacies in the science teaching curriculum.

"It's about delivering an entirely complementary and diverse interaction with science," she says.

"Let's say you were talking about art in school. It might be nice for the kids to, as well as understanding about the history of art, meet an artist."

Ritchie agrees: "I don't think that it is a failure. The government has put quite a bit of support into Generation Science and also into science in schools. I think, in general, we've got a reasonably good atmosphere in Scotland for encouraging people into science."

But, after seeing the worth of the programme's work, and welcoming the extra engagement, West Calder High's McKenzie thinks more could still be done by those in power. "I think it should be properly funded. It is a shame that it has to be run like a charity, and the government should be doing more," she says.

As it stands, the workshops are paid for by science engagement grants alongside money given by corporate and individual sponsors drawn from across scientific industry in Scotland. Most schools make a contribution to the cost of workshops, with disadvantaged areas helped by donations.

As the organisation prepares to send more leading lights into Scotland's schools, Glover reiterates the importance of the continuation of industry involvement in science education: "High-quality science jobs will grow more than any other sector in the next 20 years. It's in business' interest to ensure that they get employees to support their business. We all have to work in partnership, and government does its bit by supporting a number of initiatives, one of them being Generation Science."

&#149 For more information, log on to: www.generationscience.co.uk