This morning Heidi the dog took me for a walk along the windswept Cromer cliffs, after which we directed a massive decrease of entropy in my shed.
Being male, sheds make me happy, and the sensation of sitting in a just-tidied shed (on an old ABO chair from IKEA, naturellement) with my golden retriever at my feet, suffused me with such a glow of warm middle-aged contentment that I decided, uncharacteristically, to do nothing for the rest of the day, just lying on the sofa and listening to Radio 4, which, as everyone knows, over-fortifies the over-forties.
Heidi and I did manage to listen to the Chancellor’s Budget Statement to the very end without nodding off and perked up at this paragraph, which you can find in print, buried on page 55 of the full 222-page budget statement, as retrieved through this link -
Project Enthuse: 3.28 The Wellcome Trust has created Project Enthuse, which will provide a comprehensive funding and support package to enable all secondary schools to develop the skills of their science teachers at the National Science Learning Centre. The Government will invest £10 million over five years to support the scheme, levering up to £20 million investment from
business and the Wellcome Trust.
Predictably, coverage of this point in the mainstream media hardly surfaces above the usual brouhaha of taxes on booze and cigs (the international aspect of this blog does not permit me to write the word ‘fags’) and the government’s green credentials. It doesn’t appear at all on Nature’s news site, as far as I can see. But to me, this should be a sign of hope. Except that it isn’t. Not really.
So, what exactly is Project Enthuse?. It seems to be a scheme to provide bursaries for teachers to keep them up to date with the latest in science, which is all well and good. It would never do, for example, for pupils to learn about phlogiston, alchemy and evolution (tendence Lamarckiste).
But as with so many things with Her Majesty’s Government, there is a preponderance of good intention over achievement [oooh, bit political – Ed.] Schools are desperate for science teachers, and while junkets to the National Science Learning Centre are very nice, you do need to get the teachers to enter the profession to begin with. Otherwise your charabanc will be as quiet as the heat death of the Universe.
A few years ago, as an experiment, I discovered the website of the UK teaching agency and filled in an expression of interest in being a secondary-school science teacher.
I knew that I’d struck gold. No sooner had I filled out the form and sent it off than I was deluged with post, email and even telephone calls trying to persuade, even pleading, for me to start as soon as possible. This very nice lady called repeatedly for several months and I spent many happy hours saying ‘no’ to her while she crooned orgasmically at me and practically promised to have my babies, if only I’d sign up right now (yes, fellers, it was great. Commitment-free phone-sex, sponsored by the government, noch!)
Plainly, what schools want, with a passion, is people (especially male people) who’ve been in the Real World (inasmuch as working at Nature approximates to that state); someone with a Ph.D.; and who has been working in science publishing as a communicator for 20 years. You can see why she was keen.
Except that they aren’t prepared to pay for it. When the nice lady on the phone had stopped lisping voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir? I explained to her that the people they want weren’t just starting out, but middle-aged people with mortgages, school-aged children of their own, not to mention dogs, chickens, snakes, hamsters and (noblesse oblige) Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM, and would be unlikely to be able to sustain a fifty per cent salary cut, even had they wanted to. “Oh Dirk,” wailed the woman on the phone (never once did she get my name right), “I thought you were so rugged”.
My suggestion that we could continue as friends was rudely rebuffed. She hung up.
Dearest Hendry Jee,
If you could email me this lady’s number off Forum, that would be great(cough).....
Cue “nudge nudge” Python et al
Doh! I didn’t make a note of her private number, but you know, I think she said she came from Purley.
Mmm. So how many science teachers are there? I mean proper science, not STEM.
I fear that 10 million over five years, which sounds a lot, when spread over the entire country is but pissing into the ocean.
Richard – I think your point underlines HMG’s record of intention over achievement.
Don’t get me started Henry. Like that 5 billion for the NHS a few years ago – to be funded by NI contribs. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.
And I think ‘intention’ is too kind a word – unless as in ‘intention to get re-elected’. Thing is, your average Jane in the street thinks ‘10 million, wow that’s a lot.’ But the NHS (for example) burns through that before morning coffee.
Just off the phone with * *
Apparently, those interested in applying for such posts should drop off their CV’s here at 45 Enthuse Crescent, in North Purley
Oo-er, Graham! Apparently Project Enthuse is even more of a con than Richard thinks. Really, what HMG needs to do to support science—if indeed it takes science as seriously as it claims—is to pay top dollar for science teachers, more than—say—drama or media studies teachers, and face down the teaching unions who would no doubt complain of divisiveness.
... after all, local government pays premium rates for its chief executives, with the excuse that they need to offer large salaries to get the best people. So why not offer the same to secondary school science teachers, which they claim they desperately need? Do they think that even the best potential science teachers are stupid, or what?
This is surely the most exciting thing:
(from Enterprise: unlocking the UK’s talent)
Yes, a link between two websites. It’s not specified whether this will be a hypertext anchor, or a more newfangled thing, like a republished feed. We wait and see, eh?
Not the most exciting of proposals, but I guess they are trying to show joined up thinking (and it is a paragraph in amongst many listing Good Things)
What planet are these people on?
Admittedly, I didn’t take a terribly long time to read through the Project Enthuse (stupidest name ever) manifesto, but it seemed like an awful lot of words with just a couple of ideas.
On a related note – in the States, a PhD is the last thing that could get you a teaching job. They don’t want PhDs and consider such people overqualified for the position. At least that was the situation in my state (Virginia). I am disturbed by this. There are a few magnet schools – ones you have to take an exam to be admitted to – that hold their teachers to a higher academic standard, but those schools are few and far between. Even at the magnet school I attended, my pre-calculus teacher made my mathematician Father’s blood boil. The teacher assured my Father that he would be learning along with the students, doing the problem sets as they did them. Thunk.
I had to laugh when reading this post. I filled out the online ‘request for information’ regarding secondary school teaching positions in 2000 and my Mum still gets annual telephone calls to her house from the teaching agency trying to find out whether I’m interested in the program! In a way, this is a good thing as it reassures dear old Mum that maybe one day I’ll be capable of getting a proper job…