Scotland could be losing a potential pool of 5500 gifted scientists every year, despite demand for skilled employees in science and technical roles, according to research commissioned by Shell UK. 

The poll of Scottish 9-14 year olds reveals that, although a significant proportion (33%) are inspired by science, many of these children are making an early decision not to pursue science beyond the age of sixteen.

In fact, children are making their mind up on careers as young as nine years old, with 88% saying they have a firm idea, or a good idea, of what they want to do in the future, and they are failing to choose science careers due to a limited understanding of what a ‘scientist’ does.  34% say they are turned off a career in science because they don’t want to sit in a lab all day, while a quarter (24%) feel that they could get a better paid job and 32% feel their communication skills would go unused.  Nearly half (47%) failed to recognise that a career in plastic surgery would require an understanding of science, while almost two fifths (36%) said the same of pharmacy and over a quarter (29%) of becoming an astronaut. 

Just 5% of Scottish children want to be a scientist, compared to 20% who want to be a footballer, 18% an actor, 13% a hairdresser and 1% a politician.  There is also a limited awareness of famous scientists, engineers and inventors with 53% failing to identify Alexander Graham Bell, 81% Marie Curie and 78% James Dyson.

The Scottish poll, which included 400 9-14 year olds, was part of a UK wide research project carried out amongst 4000 children in the same age band.  Across the UK the research reveals a decline in positive attitudes to science as children progress from primary through secondary school: 

·         47% of nine year olds say they enjoy science as they can use the things they learn in everyday life, declining to 38% of 12 year olds and 34% of 14 year olds

·         42% of nine year olds say science lessons are inspiring, declining to 38% of 12 year olds and 35% of 14 year olds

·         51% of nine year olds enjoy science because they get to do lots of fun practical work, declining to 45% of 14 year olds

·         23% of nine year olds say they go on science-related school trips, declining to 18% of 11 year olds and 9% of 14 year olds

Although the Scottish findings are broadly in line with the UK statistics there are a few significant anomalies.  For example 32% of Scottish pupils place PE as their favourite subject, compared to 23% across the UK, while 53% of Scottish pupils recognised that a career as a mechanic required an understanding of science, compared to 45% across the UK.

The polling forms part of a wider report - Learning to Love Science: harnessing children’s scientific imagination - conducted for Shell Education Service by the Chemical Industry Education Centre at the University of York.   The report explores when and what might cause children to disengage from science and what is being, and could be, done to reverse this trend.

Joy Parvin, Learning to Love Science author, said: “There have been many changes to science education in the last 20 years, yet we still face issues relating to students’ declining interest in the subject as they journey through education today.”

In a drive to arrest the declining numbers of young people taking science subjects on to further and higher education, Shell Education Service delivers interactive, investigative science workshops to over 50,000 primary school children across the UK every year.  In Scotland around 160 school workshops are delivered every year along with a number of specially devised science family days.

The Learning to Love Science report is published on the Shell website at: www.shell.co.uk/socialinvestment