Professor Hamsa Venkat:

I will begin with the question relating to the length of time dedicated to science. In the new primary curriculum, there is a monthly specification that goes with science, technology and engineering. The danger with that, as we have seen even before the introduction of this curriculum, is that science time is already being whittled down. Teachers who are not very confident about their own knowledge of science are being told they will have to teach science, technology and engineering in the same time allocation. We think science is a very important part of STEM, but if we want to protect it, we will have to give enough time to it.

Our suggestion would be to give science a weekly time allocation and, moreover, to give at least termly access to an extensive, expansive STEM project, of various sorts, that children at all grades, from early years into primary schooling, would get every year. They are going to complete a range of projects. We would strongly say teacher education needs to come on board. All of us around this table, I would guess, got into STEM on the back of traditional disciplinary learning. We did not have much access to integrated learning. Integrated learning is new for many teachers, especially in the field of STEM, so teacher education should work in parallel.

I agree that extending the programme to 2026 sounds like a long timeline, but in educational innovation anywhere in the world, it is probably not long. What we would not want is to do is get to 2026 and find we are not much further on than we were in 2017, so thinking carefully about what we put in place systemically in teacher education is a major part of this. Having said that, so too is the provision of technology and digital resources that we need in schools. I would suggest that to do that carefully and systemically, we will do well to think in the medium term rather than in a shorter timeline.