'Slump' in science students does not add up

FEARS of a slump in Year 12 science studies were based on a miscalculation, the NSW chief scientist warned yesterday

FEARS of a slump in Year 12 science studies were based on a miscalculation, the NSW chief scientist warned yesterday in a dramatic challenge to the key finding of a report by the Australian Academy of Science.

The report into the status and quality of science in Years 11 and 12 found that the proportion of students studying the subject had halved over the past two decades, from about 94 per cent in 1992 to 51 per cent last year.

But, in what is an embarrassing slip-up by the report's authors, the NSW Chief Scientist Mary O'Kane said it appeared that two different sets of data were used to calculate the number of students taking science, and queried that it was ever as high as 94 per cent.

Professor O'Kane said an analysis by her office suggested the study of science fell during the 1990s but had been relatively stable for the past 10 years at about 50 per cent of Year 12 students.

"The real story is the stability after 2001. Student numbers seemed to drop through the 1990s and stabilised around 2001 and it's still stable," she said.

"That's not to say enough kids are doing maths and science, we need more. We're pleased the academy is looking at the problem but it needs a bit more work."

The nation's Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb, who commissioned the report, yesterday said it was the general decline in the study of science that was the key issue, not the actual number of students.

"We questioned it when we saw it and there's no explanation at this point, but I think it's the general trend that's very important rather than the actual numbers," he said.

The report uses figures on student participation in science from 1991 to 2010 supplied by the federal Education Department, which show a sudden fall of almost 40,000 students between 2001 and 2002. It also quotes a study from 2008 by the Australian Council for Educational Research on the number of students taking different science subjects, including physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences.

Adding the students in each science subject gives the total number of students provided by the Education Department between 1991 and 2001, but the figures from 2002 do not tally.

Professor O'Kane suggested the student numbers through the 90s represented total enrolments in science and counted some students more than once if they studied more than one science subject.

The lead author of the report and architect of the national science curriculum, Denis Goodrum, said the figures were supplied by the federal Education Department and he had to rely on them in good faith. "I went back and asked the question about the drop between 2001 and 2002 and they were unable to give me an explanation," he said. "But the data still shows in the past eight years there's been a fall. It's not huge, but the figures are still going down."

Professor Goodrum said the aim of the report was to pose the question, was the nation happy with only 50 per cent of students taking science in Years 11 and 12. "To me, that's the most important question," he said "Maybe some people are happy with that but I would imagine there's a group of people concerned about it."

The report was welcomed by the Australian Council of Deans of Science for identifying serious problems facing the status of science in the senior years.

While the report was critical of science curriculums for being overcrowded with content, arguing it turned students off, NSW and Western Australia have the highest enrolments in Year 12 science and the most detailed syllabuses.

NSW Board of Studies president Tom Alegounarias said enrolments in HSC science had risen 21 per cent since 2001, and he attributed it to the syllabus spelling out in detail the knowledge and skills students should learn.

The report comes as lobbying increases for the federal government to restore funding to a program designed by Professor Goodrum to boost science teaching in primary schools.

The government cut its funding for Primary Connections, but yesterday Tony Abbott announced that a Coalition government would reinstate the $2 million.

The Opposition Leader made the announcement at the Sydney Observatory, where he met this year's Nobel physics laureate Brian Schmidt, who has donated $100,000 of his prizemoney to the program.