The Cabinet made a little-publicised decision last Wednesday - to redesignate the Department of Education as the Department of Education and Science. The Minister for Education, Micheal Martin, will in future be styled Minister for Education and Science, even though Minister of State Michael Smith will continue to have day-to-day responsibility for science, reporting also to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
This is the first change in the titles of the Minister and the Department since the Department's establishment. According to a Department spokesperson, the change highlights "the growing importance of education and of science, in its broadest sense within education, in promoting personal, social, cultural and economic development."
It may seem like a little thing - it actually fulfils an election promise that science would be represented at the Cabinet table - but the recognition which the decision gives to the importance of science in education, industry and the economy generally is significant.
In the second-level curriculum, physics and chemistry have been declining dramatically in popularity, both in the Republic and Northern Ireland. Obviously, the thrills of burning phosphorous on water and other botched attempts to destroy school labs pale into insignificance in this age of instant images on computer, video or television.
Not even the importance and value of science subjects in gaining access to a coveted diploma or degree course seem to have influenced many students in recent years, in spite of the difficulties they experience trying to get a college place.
In choosing third-level courses, fewer students choose science courses than other courses. The demand for science courses is around two applicants for one place (2:1), compared with 3:1 for business courses, 8:1 for medicine or 13:1 for physiotherapy.
Even the universities, institutes and regional colleges themselves are severely strapped for finance for scientific research, as this week's lead story reveals. (Not all of the third-level research covered is scientific, but much of it is).
For many years in this country, science was a Cinderella area, inhabited by academics with little clout - or interest in - the messy business of raising the finance necessary to catapult their subjects to the forefront of education and industry, but that is changing dramatically.
The Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation has recommended to the Government that there should be increased investment in basic research, better financial support for post-graduate researchers and has stressed the need to strengthen the links between third-level research and industry.
Unfortunately, it is not the Department of Education which will determine the future funding of science in Ireland - but rather the Department of Finance. It is Charlie McCreevy who has to be convinced of the vital importance of scientific research to economic investment, not the more-than-supportive Minister for Education and Science or the Minister of State.
Within the next few weeks, there will be a national science awareness week. In January and February next, the first annual schools' science festival will be held at Dublin City Unversity. Maybe by a slow drip, prompted and supported by the Minister for Education and Science, this vital area of education and training will eventually receive the recognition and support it deserves.
Education & Living
Editor: Ella Shanahan
Production: Hugh Lambert and Harry Browne
Main cover illustration: Kevin McSherry
Small cover illustrations: Cathy Dineen
Email: education@irish-times.ie
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