Labour has continued its cost-cutting spree by binning a long-running programme to boost take-up in physics – despite Keir Starmer this week pledging to make Britain an AI superpower.
The prime minister unveiled his vision to “unleash” AI across the UK to deliver a “decade of national renewal”.
One of the commitments was to “facilitate significant and sustained progress on improving the gender balance across digital education”.
But it has emerged the Department for Education will cease funding for the Stimulating Physics Network (SPN) when its contract ends in March. Running for 16 years, it helps get more girls studying the subject.
Funding to help science teachers attend “high-impact training” at the National STEM Learning Centre has also been slashed. Meanwhile, computing and science hubs have already been axed.
‘Undermining decades of progress’
Severine Trouillet, CEO of STEM Learning which runs the schemes, said it was “a significant blow to education in critical enabling areas” that could have aided the government’s AI vision.
She added cuts “undermine decades of progress” and “reveal a worrying blind spot when it comes to the infrastructure needed to deliver STEM education. Yet the stakes couldn’t be higher”.
Just 30 per cent of the required physics teachers were recruited last year.
The SPN programme provided free training and support to specialist and non-specialist physics teachers through CPD workshops and coaching.
Schools with new or few teachers of the subject could also get “additional bespoke support” by becoming a network partner school, of which there are 350.
47% cut to science CPD
Schools minister Catherine McKinnell said it was a “difficult decision”. Cuts have been blamed on a fiscal black hole left by the Conservatives.
The latest phase of the programme received £2.7 million of funding.
An impact report three years ago found A-level physics entries in SPN schools “was almost six percentage points above the national increase” after three years.
The proportion of girls taking the subject was also up 29 per cent over the period in these secondaries, compared to 13 per cent in other schools.
A scheme to provide face-to-face training for science teachers will also be scaled back when it runs out in March. It will now only provide training for physics teachers, and online.
It means government funding for science CPD will have fallen by almost £4 million (47 per cent) this year.
Louis Barson, director of science at the Institute of Physics, said: “Only this week, the prime minister was making bold pledges on the UK’s ambitions for AI – an area where a UK-born researcher recently won the Nobel prize for physics.
“Yet the same government is also cutting investment in physics education, when there is already a dire shortage of around 3,500 physics teachers across England.”
Teacher postcode lottery
The DfE said it “will encourage subject associations to continue to support schools to access training to help teachers to upskill” with its new regional improvement (RISE) teams expected to “facilitate networking [and] share best practice”.
McKinnell said there was also a “range of other support for science education in schools, including free, optional materials from Oak National Academy in all three sciences”.
However, Barson added physics teacher shortages had left many youngsters “facing a postcode lottery” over whether they are taught by a specialist in the subject.
This is an “important factor in whether they pursue” physics after the age of 16, he said.
Neil O’Brien, shadow schools minister, added Labour was “rashly scrapping schemes schools are relying on… without a clear vision for how to improve schools”.
He added: “Now they are cutting support for subjects where global teacher recruitment challenges are most acute. They don’t seem to have a grip.”
