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Government Must Overhaul Science Funding, Say MPs

Posted on: Thursday, 7 April 2005, 15:00 CDT

THE Government must overhaul the way science subjects are funded, or risk missing out on key economic goals, an allparty of committee of MPs report today. The warning comes as a number of university science departments have been closed down, putting national provision of science subjects in jeopardy.

MPs on the Commons Science and Technology Committee point out that science is at the heart of the Government's political and economic agendas, yet numbers of students in the key science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects have been dropping for several years. In order to reverse the decline in students taking up these subjects, the Government urgently needs to address its root cause by tackling the quality of science teaching in schools, according to the report.

Without taking this and other long-term measures, MPs say that departments will continue to close, making it difficult for the Government to realise its economic goals.

The committee's radical solution is that, instead of allowing all universities to compete for research and teaching funds in a winner- takes-all system, it wants each university to play to its own strengths

Source: Daily Post; Liverpool

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