Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish 
Science In Ireland
Read more about: Education
As with every year the discussion of the Leaving Cert results centres around 2 things. 1 the gender gap which I will leave to someone else and 2 the decline in the sciences. So what can we do to increase the amount of people taking sciences in the secondary school and at third level. One of the big factors I think in the level of interest in sciences in Ireland is Arts Students.
Looking at the blogosphere I have to wonder am I the only scientist blogging? I don’t know of any one else. Most people seem to come from a largely arts or computer based background. This is of course understandable. Arts students love to write and express opinions and this is a medium that allows one to do just that. Also it is a computer media obviously resulting in many a computer blogger. But blogging is a minority sport compared to the rest of media.
Take film. One of the big genres of films is the story of the teacher in the tough school getting the kids to love school especially one kid who has a special talent. Now how many times has that special talent been maths or chemistry? Good will Hunting is all I can think of. Every other film in that genre has people loving English or art. Never Maths. Also in film how are physicist portrayed. Usually as social inept ugly people with glasses and no friends. (Save Denise Richards in one of those bond movies.). Compare that to the potraly of the “arts” person. They are always cool swave socially adept, good looking and loads of friends. Do people think this does not have an effect on people taking science course. When you are 15 what roll model are you going to want to follow.
But it is other parts of the media that take the biscuits. Media coverage of science is abysmal in this country. Other then the Irish Times coverage on one day a week how much coverage does science get. And even in the Irish Times how much coverage does science get compared to the arts. Compared to science coverage arts gets wall to wall coverage from our national broadcaster. The only science I have really ever seen on RTE is either wildlife. Or scope. Quantum Leap disappered like an electron-positron collision. While scope is good for what it is. It is for kids and is a bit simplistic. Why do we not have more serious programming in science showing more people of all ages the wonders of science (like this). From the vastness of interstellar space to the world of quarks (the name comes from James Joyces Finnegan’s wake). We do it for the arts why not the sciences. How many science museums do we have compared to art galleries? Do we even have one.? We want to inspire kids in the wonders of science yet what do we offer them to inspire them. And when the papers and news give good cover to a science story what do they cover fecking perpetual motion machines. Quack science. We have loads of quality research coming out of Ireland and that is what gets on the news. The reason I think is that naturally enough most journalists do not come from a science backgrounds o have no interest in covering it. Listen to interviews on the news, they can take politicians and business leaders to task but talk to anything evolving science or health and they rarely ever challenge. I guess in many ways may it is the science communities fault for not becoming journalists.
One of the reasons given for science take up being so bad is because it is boring for students. In fairness reading about Emma having tea on Box Hill is not more interesting then burning stuff in a lab. Lab work has appeal to students. It is hands on they can actually see what they are doing. The atmosphere is fairly relaxed you can chat away as you work. No I don’t think that is the reason.
The big reason is that it is seen as hard and lets be honest about it to most people it is. So what can be done to make the subjects more easy to grasp. One thing anyway would be increase the amount of lab work in done in the class room. Science is mainly a laboratory pursuit. While you do need the require theory if you can instil and interest in the subjects to kids then they continue to do it in later life. Also we have to change “easy subjects” so that no longer do kids have choices between easy and hard subjects. But only a choice between subjects. If that means making Geography harder. So be it.
If we want to change the participation of children in science we have to change the perception of science in Ireland as a whole. Measures like weighted points while helpful will do little to solve the problem.
I’m a scientist who’s doesn’t wear a labcoat anymore, although I’m involved in the business side of science now. I am/was a biologist so I may not count as a ’scientist’ but I reckon there’s two main reasons why science is not as popular as it should be.
1. Money. 4 years for a primary degree, then a Masters and/or PhD. Then a ‘trainee’ postdoc. Outside of medicine, how many other professions involve such a tortuous/lengthy path to a ‘full-time’ job. Tradionally, in science, you did one post-doc and then got tenure somewhere. Nowadays, it takes 2 or 3 postdocs (~10 years?) before you get tenure. Effectively, you’re 30-something before you have a ‘proper’ job. And in today’s Ireland, that’s not practical. Ask your partner about no house/VHI/pension/company car etc until you’re 30-something!
2. Boredom. Outside of academia, science is often boring or routine. My favourite was a chemist MSc friend who got a job in a local Pharma company. His job was to do ‘dissolution tests’ on tablets. As I’ve said already, I’m a biologist, but the way it was explained to me was that he dropped a tablet into solution and timed how long it took to dissolve. Now, personally, this is not a job that would motivate me to get out of bed everyday for the rest of my life!
It shouldn’t be difficult to get people interested in science. I had to mind a friend’s 8 yr old child for an afternoon a couple of weeks ago. She watered the plants in my garden by watering the leaves. I explained to her that plants ‘drink’ water through their roots in the ground. She re-filled the watering can and watered the roots. Children have an inherent curiosity but teenagers/leaving cert students are thinking about their future.
Until there’s a realistic career path, they won’t choose science as a career.
Isadub
i am delighted to hear someone express such a view on science
someone close to me has emigrated to london aged 29 to work as a senior administrator in a london council rather than use her chemistry doctorate here or anywhere else
she saw through the system pretty quickly working at a british university and decided two years was enough, working for what i insist as describing as “a drug dealer”
she is earning decent money and always had the attitude that she worked to live not the reverse
-exploitation is the name of the game- once you cotton on to that youre flying -out the door
the people who talk up this subject want to fill the places in their college and conveniently dont speak about the other side of it
your letter descibes the system to a tee
Oh come on Simon!
We computer scientists are scientists too!
I suspect his problem is that many computer folk are engineers!