Higher Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Science and Technology Committee Report

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for his chairmanship of this inquiry. When we started out, it seemed such a broad topic that we did not know how we would focus on key issues. However, the skill, discipline and good humour of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, enabled us to focus on some important issues that affect the future of STEM in higher education.

Other noble Lords have set out the importance of STEM graduates, both at first and second degree level, to the future of the UK economy. Therefore, I will not dwell on that but remind noble Lords en passant of the Social Market Foundation report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred, which estimates an annual shortfall of 40,000 STEM graduates. Filling that gap implies a 50% increase in UK STEM graduates, if we are to rely on home-grown talent. It seems to me highly unlikely that the gap, whatever its size, will easily be met by UK students. Why do I say that? It is because we simply cannot turn on a tap to produce more STEM graduates because the supply chain is a long one that starts at school. For example, with an estimated shortage of 4,000 physics teachers, according to the Institute of Physics, and with no fewer than 500 state secondary schools having no qualified physics teacher at all, how can we hope to produce more graduates in the core hard STEM subjects? Going back further in the supply chain, it is estimated that less than 5% of primary school teachers have STEM qualifications. In this context, can the Minister tell us how many applicants per post there were last year for teaching jobs in physics, chemistry and maths in state secondary schools? We will rely on importing talent from overseas, as we have done in the past.

I recently took part in a Radio 4 programme called “Premiership Science”, which drew the analogy between the premiership in the Football League and the UK’s position in science. The premiership is deemed by many to be the best football league in the world because it draws on the best talent from all over the world. The programme argued that we should aim to do the same in science, taking account of our natural advantage of language and the reputation of our leading universities. Will we be able to continue to do this after the Government shot themselves in the foot a couple of years ago by making it appear to be much more difficult for overseas students to come here to study STEM subjects as undergraduates or postgraduates and then to stay on to work?

The inquiry heard of the dramatic impact of the changes in the Immigration Rules: for example, a 39% decline in applicants from India to the University of Aston, a leading university in engineering and technology. Together with a number of other Select Committee chairs, I recently wrote to the Prime Minister, ahead of his visit to India, to express concerns about both the reality and, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, emphasised, the perception that the UK no longer welcomes overseas talent. In his reply, the Prime Minister was upbeat about recent changes to immigration policy that he believes will encourage students to come here, and reverse the damage—although he did not acknowledge that there was damage—done by earlier announcements.

However, the evidence from my own university—the University of Oxford—where there are nearly 4,000 students on tier 4 visas, indicates that there are still significant problems. I will enumerate some of them: first, the administrative burden and cost associated with attendance monitoring by the university; and, secondly, the bureaucratic complexity of the post-study work options. For instance, the proposal to allow PhD students to stay on and work for 12 months after completion by issuing a confirmation of acceptance for studies extension requires specifying the exact date of completion of the PhD ahead of time, and for the university to maintain contact with the student for 12 months after completing the course. As anybody in higher education will confirm, the inherent nature of completing a PhD means that it is often very difficult to specify in advance the exact date of the end of the course. Thirdly, as regards visa processing times, student visa extensions take three months or more to process. The UKBA held the passport of a senior overseas academic in my Oxford college for 27 weeks, and it was only after intervention by a Minister that action was elicited from it. This really does not encourage people to think of the UK as a welcoming place to work after they have studied here.

Fourthly, the UKBA’s tendency to change the rules frequently makes it difficult for overseas students to navigate the processes. Does the Minister agree that whatever the rhetoric, the reality is that the Government are still not doing enough to make it easy to draw in top talent from around the world to study and work here? Does she also agree that this country, for the foreseeable future, will be dependent on overseas talent to fill the STEM deficit?

I turn briefly to the subject of postgraduate provision, to which other noble Lords have already referred. Our inquiry highlighted the fact that too little attention has been paid to the funding and quality of postgraduate STEM education and training. The funding of master’s was not addressed by the Browne inquiry. Yet, as we have already heard, increasingly employers demand master’s or PhD level qualifications for entrants to the job market.

Sir Adrian Smith’s 2010 report, One Step Beyond, highlighted the funding shortfall for postgraduate provision at that time, with 60% of those on taught master’s and 30% of those taking postgraduate research degrees having no public or charitable funding. In my own university, survey results show that across all disciplines 45% of those turning down a place for graduate studies at Oxford cite lack of funding as the reason. This is exacerbated by the fact that our major competitors, in the United States and elsewhere, typically offer 100% funding for postgraduate studies. The withdrawal of funding for taught master’s by the research councils, which has already been referred to, is making the situation worse. I note that the research councils’ funding for STEM postgraduate research posts in 2010-11 is at its lowest level since 2004-05. Does the Minister agree that lack of funding for graduate studies in STEM subjects in particular will be a threat to the nation’s ability to generate sufficient numbers of educated and trained people to meet the demands of industry?

Finally, I turn briefly to the topic of maths education, which has had a thorough airing in the comments from previous noble Lords in this debate. In referring to a recent report from the Nuffield Foundation, Towards Universal Participation in Post-16 Mathematics: Lessons from High-Performing Countries, I declare an interest in that I am a trustee of that foundation. This report reveals that the UK has the lowest participation rates in post-16 maths out of 24 comparable countries. The Nuffield report goes on to suggest that a qualification based on mathematical fluency, modelling and statistics, which should be built into the requirements for higher education, would be suitable for those who do not wish to go on with specialist subjects requiring high-level maths education. Does the Minister accept that post-16 maths is a priority for producing future generations of STEM graduates and, more widely, for the future prosperity of the country?

As the noble Lord, Lord Willis, mentioned, we were somewhat disappointed by the Government’s lack of enthusiasm for many of our recommendations, although he and I appreciated the fact that the Science and Higher Education Minister, David Willetts, made time to discuss with us how many of our points could be taken forward. I very much hope that the Minister will reassure us that, as a result of our inquiry and this debate, we will see the Government taking the issue of STEM in higher education as a serious challenge for the future prosperity of this country.