 The final item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 11626 in the name of Ian Gray on Learned Societies Group on Scottish Science Education report. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put and I will be grateful if members who would like to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons now please. A call on Ian Gray to open the debate. Seven minutes please, Mr Gray. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. We all like to think of Scotland as a great science nation with a proud history of scientific achievements enough to fill many details over. But in this particular year, I wanted to start by illustrating that with a passing reference to perhaps one of the greatest shining lights of her scientific past, James Clark Maxwell, because this year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Maxwell's treatise, a dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field, one of the most important publications ever in science and the equations included therein. Just as important as the perhaps more famous E equals mc squared from Einstein later on, a quantum mechanics, the foundations of which did indeed lie with James Clark Maxwell's very work. Clark Maxwell was not just a great researcher and theoretical physicist, he was a teacher too. He lectured first at the Marshall College, the predecessor of the University of Aberdeen and indeed gave pro bono lectures in that city too to the local working men's college. As well as a proud history in science, we have a proud history in science teaching and the two are fundamentally related. It is in science teaching that I have a history of science teaching and it is history, a small part myself, not quite as illustrious as James Clark Maxwell's but I did start professional life as a physics teacher and although that experience and indeed my GTC registration lies far back in the dim and distant past, my passion for science and the excitement that learning about science can provide for young people remains undiminished. So it was that when the learning societies group published their report back in November, I found that the results of their survey of science teaching in our schools and the resources there quite alarming. That survey, the first in about 10 years, shows that 82 per cent of our schools report that they do not have sufficient resources for science teaching. That is simply related to funding and it is a fact shown in the survey that funding per pupil of science teaching in our secondary schools is around a third less than it is in England for example and in primary schools the situation is worse with the funding being around half the level that one could expect in a primary school in England. 98 per cent of the schools surveyed said that they were drawing on external funding in order to marshal enough resources to teach science and that often meant from the pockets of science teachers themselves. Those pockets are neither deep nor numerous because not long after the learning societies report, the Institute of Physics produced a further report that looked at physics graduates and their careers and it demonstrated that in their survey those physics graduates who had become teachers were the poorest paid section of those who were surveyed and as a result there is an impending shortage now of physics teachers, not helped by the fact that other parts of the United Kingdom are providing financial incentives for trainee teachers in STEM subjects and we are losing trainee teachers to the rest of the United Kingdom and it's not just teachers, local government cuts which we've just heard about in the budget debate have seen school technicians in science departments cut as well but there are other concerns around science teaching not just about resources. Science teachers have come to me with concerns about an unintended consequence of the introduction of curriculum for excellence an introduction of which we of course do support however the way in which course choice is being implied in their schools has led to a squeezing of science and maths subjects and there are real fears now that the number of pupils choosing these subjects will be reduced not helped by the results of the first new national exams which show significantly lower pass rates in science subjects than in some others and a real fear among science teachers that pupils will therefore be discouraged from choosing these subjects because of the long standing belief that they are somehow too hard and the result will be a reduction in classes surely. I thank the member for giving way. Governments are more accustomed to being criticised when pass rates are seen to be easy rather than when standards are clearly being maintained but can I ask him what evidence does he have that teachers or anyone else in our system are discouraging young people from taking science subjects? I agree. The first thing is that I made clear that the evidence was at the moment anecdotal and let me come to that at the end of my remarks but it does come from teachers and I have to say I did not suggest for a moment that teachers were discouraging students from taking science subjects but rather some of the ways in which the school administration was working was making it more difficult for young people to choose one, two or three science subjects but the minister mentioned standards there and there is a problem with standards too because the Scottish Government's own numeracy survey last year demonstrated default in numeracy attainment in our schools as well and of course numeracy underpins these STEM subjects. We saw significant falls at P2, P4 and something like 34 per cent not achieving the required numeracy rates in S4 as well and that is another significant difficulty in our schools which will have consequences for pupils being able to study STEM subjects. So in many ways this is rather a perfect storm, a science teaching which is under resourced where we face the situation of not enough teachers, potentially not enough pupils choosing STEM subjects and a lack of the fundamental or dropping standards and the fundamental skills which pupils need to succeed in these subjects. It threatens our future not just as a science nation but indeed our economy too. Colleagues were at the institution of engineering and technology event a couple of weeks ago where their report suggested that we will need 147,000 engineers in Scotland and that is only engineers alone by 2022 in order to see the kind of growth in the economy that we want to see. I do not for one moment suggest that the Scottish Government is not committed to quality science teaching in our schools. I simply use this evening to draw attention to these reports which interlock and suggest to us that there are problems developing around science education in our schools. The time is now to actually take action. Next week our education committee will have a session looking at this but the truth is that these are problems which need more than a one-off evidence session. What we need is a plan for action to turn these problems around resourcing teachers and any unintended consequences on course choices of curriculum change before it is too late and so that we can see and hope and expect in the future to create more James Clark Maxwells who will maintain our reputation as one of the leading science nations of the world. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate. Speeches of four minutes are so pleased and I call Stuart Maxwell to be followed by Elaine Murray. Thank you very much Presiding Officer and I congratulate Ian Gray on securing this debate. I also associate myself with the remarks that he made about the towering figure that is James Clark Maxwell. Since its creation in 2012, the Learned Society's group on Scottish science education has carried a lot of very interesting work, including its latest report on the resourcing of science in Scottish schools. Last month I met William Hardy, Secretary of the Learned Society's group along with Bristol Muldoon and Dr Bill Beverage to discuss the findings of their report. As convener of the education and culture committee, I would like to inform members about the work that our committee plans to undertake on science education. The committee has agreed to examine whether there are barriers to more people studying STEM subjects at school, college and university. We also plan to look at the extent to which industries' needs for STEM skills are being met by the education system. Initially, the committee has invited the Learned Society's group to discuss the findings of its report on the resourcing of science in schools at its meeting next week, as Ian Gray quite rightly mentioned. However, we also intend to do further work as we will carry out further detailed evidence sessions later in the year looking into STEM subjects. I very much recognise the Scottish Government's commitment to science education in Scottish classrooms. However, at this point, I want to take the opportunity to put on record my support for the campaign to ensure that creationism or intelligent design have no place in the science classrooms of Scotland. Scientific factor theory should be taught to our young people and not the ridiculous nonsense of those pushing the young earth fantasy. Decisions on resourcing are, of course, for education authorities and their schools, although the work of the Learned Society's group has been very useful in identifying areas for improvement. However, we must not jump to conclusions given the survey, for example, only covered 2 per cent of Scottish primary school. Indeed, the report itself states that, given the small samples, the findings should be read as providing an indication only of the Scotland-wide picture. Secondly, it is a fact that, among the surveyed schools, the average spend on science has increased from £280 in 2012-13 to £343 in 2013-14, representing a rise of 21 per cent. Next year, the level of spend on science is estimated to grow by an average of 12.9 per cent among the surveyed schools, so that is very welcome news indeed. One area that the report highlighted is the need to encourage more pupils to consider science-related careers by improving participation in practical science work from an early age. However, the report indicated that a number of teachers, particularly in primary schools, reported having difficulty supporting practical science lessons due to a lack of resources and equipment. I would expect this issue to be a key question for the education and culture committee's work in the weeks ahead. However, our young people continue to excel at science, as evidenced by Aiden Miles and Murray Patterson, two pupils from Glennifer High and Paisley, who recently won the best quality award in the Higgs Boson competition, organised by the Institute of Physics. Last week, I hosted a reception in parliament, again mentioned by Ingray, on behalf of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, to promote the need for more young people to take up STEM subjects at school and pursue careers in related industries. During that reception, we heard from Naomi Mitchison, IET's young woman engineer of the year, who spoke passionately about the importance of taking steps to change perceptions about gender in the engineering industry. Naomi Mitchison is a talented and successful young engineer, and I certainly hope that more ambassadors like Naomi are given the chance to speak about the benefits of taking up STEM subjects at school. Excellent work is going on every day to promote science in Scottish classrooms. Last year, a teacher from Mern's primary in East Renfrewshire was awarded a primary science teacher award for his work in championing science to his pupils. Paul Tyler was given the accolade by the primary science teaching trust for his inspiring science lessons, which included building a wave generator and a tidal turbine to generate electricity. Schools across East Renfrewshire have been participating in the science champions scheme, which is funded by the Scottish Government in order to offer teachers training and resources to promote science projects to pupils. That project, that work and that funding takes place in about 50 per cent of our local authorities. Again, I think that very much a welcome programme by the Scottish Government. Scotland has a proud history of scientific achievement, and our future success in the fields of science and technology will rely on no small part of the hard work being carried out by our teachers, and particularly teachers like Paul Tyler, in classrooms right across Scotland. Ilein Murray, to be followed by Liz Smith. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to start by congratulating Ilein on bringing this important subject to the chamber. As he said, Scottish science has a good reputation. That has been the case for many decades. Our scientists have excellent citation rates for their published work, and scientists from across the world are attracted to collaborate with or work at our universities. However, we must not be complacent, because a successful future economy requires a workforce that is competent in the STEM subject, as Sir Ian Wood's recent report highlighted. Children and young people can be enthused about or turned off science at an early age. Teachers and family can either make or break a child's interest in science, and it is vital therefore that primary school pupils are introduced to the sciences by teachers who are enthusiastic and competent. In their briefing to the Science and the Parliament conference last year, the Royal Society of Chemistry noted that, despite Scotland's reputation for science, our overall rating for science education lags behind many of our international competitors, including England. They suggested that there is a need to provide inspiring science teaching from an early age. They recommended that every primary school should have access to, in the case of small schools, a science subject leader who is a science specialist and who can provide the leadership on science teaching and indeed sport for colleagues. A science specialist does not have to be somebody who is a science graduate. It could be someone who has at least one higher equivalent in a science subject. It is surprising that the current minimum entry qualifications for a primary teaching requires England at SQF level 6, which some of the older of us remember as hires. Maths at SQF level 5 are standard of grade or even grade for the older of us. It has no requirement for any science qualification at all, despite the fact that science is in the curriculum. They also recommended that there needs to be sufficient continuous professional development to ensure that teachers' knowledge and skills are kept up to date, because science does change quickly. If a teacher has had a poor experience of learning science, perhaps gave up science at a fairly early age in their own school education or maybe failed science qualification, they are not going to feel particularly confident about teaching it. Science teaching from the earliest age needs to be led by teachers with confidence and enthusiasm. It is spoken about the report on the resourcing of science in Scottish schools published by the Learning Society's group on Scottish science education. That makes worrying reading. In debates on science, I often highlight my concerns about the lack of opportunities for children and even older students to undertake experiments themselves. It is concerning to me that 44 per cent of primary schools were dissatisfied with the funding available for practical work, and 82 per cent of secondary schools were not confident of having enough equipment and consumables to deliver science practical work effectively. 44 per cent of secondary schools were also dissatisfied with the level of technical support. It would be unfair to suggest that responsibility for the situation rests only with the Scottish Government. It rests, of course, with local authorities and individual schools, but I believe that those issues need to be tackled if Scotland is to remain a scientifically successful country. We need to grow our own scientists and science technicians, as well as to attract excellent students and academics from other nations. Our schools must have to be up to the task of doing that, as we do our further and higher education institutes. I know that there is no money tree on the immediate horizon, and that needs to be achieved against a background of financial restriction. I believe that it is an investment that is worth making in terms of our future economy, because, if we want to continue to be a scientifically successful country, if we want to have that sort of input into our technology to be a high wage, high experience and high qualification economy, we need to be able to produce those scientists and science technicians. Therefore, because of the issues that confront all of us, we need to be able to engage with other partners to increase the level of private investment in research and development. I cannot remember the number of years that we have been saying that there is insufficient level of private investment in research and development, but it is still the case. We also need to encourage the offering of high-quality scientific apprenticeships. In going forward, that requires promoting a consensus about the value of science and knowledge to the economy. It is an investing in science education right from the beginning, from primary school onwards. It is investing in Scotland's future. I begin by thanking Iain Gray for bringing this motion to Parliament. It is a hugely important issue that highlights the very significant concerns of the learned societies groups, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Physics. It is very good to hear from the convener of the education committee just the profile that this subject will receive in the coming weeks. I think that the academic bodies, which do so much to enhance the intellectual life of Scotland because their discourse is always well balanced, it is always non-partisan, well evidenced and without exception, is very thought provoking. They have spoken out about the crucial challenge that is facing the future of science teaching, especially when one considers that by the year 2030 some 7 million jobs across the UK will actually be directly dependent on science skills. Unlike Iain Gray, I am not a scientist, but I have a keen interest in science teachers and what they are saying. I think that he is right to identify that there are some issues about the curriculum for excellence. Some of them are good, some of them are less so, and they certainly all have some very important messages for us. I think that everybody in this chamber is very well aware that science learning has traditionally been very content driven. Knowledge of the facts has often mattered perhaps a little bit more than the learning process. It is true that there has always been a great deal of emphasis on basic numeracy, data handling skills, problem solving and research methodology, but the knowledge content has always tended to be dominant in the judicial curriculum. However, I think that there are some interesting things happening in the SQA exams of what is called the open question, which I think is designed to assess the candidate's science knowledge, but also from a much more holistic point of view and, by its very nature, an open question that does not actually have one correct answer. I think that that is a change of direction that I warmly welcome in the curriculum for excellence. I do not think that there is any need to perhaps get too worried about this, because I think that what the curriculum for excellence is trying to do is to come back to the cross-curricular teaching of science subjects, which I think is very important. I am personally a very strong supporter of the baccalaureate system of exams, but at the moment I do not actually believe that the Scottish baccalaureate has a necessary intellectual rigor, because if we look at the uptake rates, they are not good, and they do not compare particularly well with the international baccalaureate when it comes to much of that rigor. I think that the disciplines of arts sciences and social sciences are all distinct, but they inform each other. I think that there is a good movement within the curriculum for excellence to look at how that can come together. Nonetheless, there are specific problems, and I think that we need to take action. I think that it is particularly important to start with the 2012 SEAG recommendations. The report said then that the Scottish Government had quite rightly identified energy and life sciences as two priority sectors, but that that was not translating as yet into successful STEM education. I think that the key question for the education committee will be given that these are priorities. Why is this not being translated into action? Partly, it is because there is a lack of science specialist, particularly in the primary schools, and Elaine Murray is absolutely right to point to that. I think that the Royal Society of Chemistry made a very good call towards the end of November about that. We do need science specialists in our primary classrooms, but I think that we can go further, because I do believe that whether the politician is like it or not, there is educational reform coming. It is coming because the needs of Scotland and our young people are changing, and they are changing fast. That is something that Sir Ian Wood has clearly identified, particularly when it comes to looking at what is now a fiercely competitive global economy. Can I just flag up something that Lindsay Paterson in Edinburgh University talked about very eloquently in a lecture that he delivered at the David Hume Institute last year? That is about supporting our very gifted children, whatever their backgrounds are, particularly in the science subjects. There is a need, I think, to look at greater bursary support for that. There is no question about it that there is a lot that has to be done, Deputy Presiding Officer. We are on the cusp of doing some really exciting things in science, but not until we really grasp the thistle. That is about resources and it is about the professional training of teachers and ensuring that they can inspire our youngsters. Thank you very much. I now call Hans Alam Alec to be followed by Mark Griffin. Thank you very much and good evening, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Ian Gray for securing today's important debate. We have been aware of the low funding of science education in Scottish schools for some time now. However, I was still shocked to see the survey results, which suggest that 98 per cent of primary and secondary schools depend on external funding for practical work in science classes, which means that parents who cannot contribute their children are disadvantaged amongst others, which is clearly unfair and undesirable. I find it shameful that Scotland, which prides itself on being a home for great inventors such as James Watt and John Logan Baird, is spending significantly less per child on science subjects than in England. As many of you know, I have spoken on various occasions about the need to have more people studying science and technology in Scotland, particularly young women. Whereas some money and focus has been put at the end of the process of encouraging people to undertake science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses at university, we need to recognise that there is a need to have a pipeline of people who are engaging in science at all ages and all levels. You are not going to get someone choosing science choosing to study engineering at university if they never get the opportunity to conduct experiments when they are young and in the classroom. I would like to thank England for focusing attention, particularly on the crisis in the teaching of physics, as physics is an essential base for going to study engineering at university level. While I've asked the parliament questions about the gender imbalance and higher science subjects, the minister glossed over the issue by looking at all science subjects together and stating that it was not too bad. However, if we look at the science specifically, we have nearly doubled the amount of people taking higher chemistry provided provision to physics and of this taking physics only 29% of them are female. Presiding Officer, I find the state of affairs unacceptable and would argue that the Scottish Government to urgently review the strategy on scientific education at all levels. Stuart Maxwell's comments are very helpful and I genuinely wish him well in trying to redress some of the issues that he has spoken about today. However, I have to say that we need to make sure that our schools have the appropriate tools for the trade and make sure that our children get every opportunity to perform at the highest levels. The fact that schools are having to bag, borrow and steal equipment, the fact that they are having to resource goods from outwith the school budgets. That's a damning statement and I was not only shocked but I continue to be horrified that that is still the state of affairs in our schools today. It's already been indicated that some of the councils have just got as much responsibility as the Scottish Government but I think that's unfair. You can't tie schools' hands behind their backs and expect them to perform. I am hoping that the minister will be able to give me the assurances that he will, like Stuart Maxwell, do the best that he can to try to reverse the situation. Presiding Officer, I would like to start by congratulating Neil Gray for securing the debate tonight on the Scottish Science Education report published by the Learned Societies group. The report makes to start reading against the backdrop of the prediction highlighted by Liz Smith that by 2030 over 7 million jobs in the UK will depend on science skills. Those STEM jobs are exactly the kind of jobs that we need, high quality, highly skilled and highly paid jobs, which other emerging economies will struggle to compete with us for, and yet here where we have that competitive advantage I don't think we're choosing to follow that through. By 2030, the four and five-year-olds who will start primary school this summer will already be in work or possibly in the final years of university studying about to enter the jobs market but the same pupils with the same academic ability and the same aptitude for science in England will have enjoyed over 10 years of state education with 80 per cent more per head spent on science in primary school and 27 per cent more per head spent on science in secondary school if current spending levels continuing it. That's a massive head start in building the necessary skills to compete for those 7 million jobs. The science teaching situation has been described by my colleague as a perfect storm and it's hard to disagree with that looking at the stats in the commentary provided within the science education reports. It states that, as I've said, spending on science is significantly lower than in England. In 57 per cent of schools, they don't have sufficient equipment to carry out lessons. 44 per cent of primary and 80 per cent of secondary schools are unhappy with the level of funding for practical science lessons and 98 per cent of all schools have sought additional external funding from parents or teachers or other sources. That issue alone, where 98 per cent of schools have sought external funding, is likely to have a bigger impact in more deprived areas where parents aren't in a position to contribute to their own child's education, something flagged up by Hanzala Malik. If the report is accurate on that specific point and I take on what the minister said about the small sample size and not being able to do is an in-depth analysis as we would like, I'd be interested in the minister's view and if they're going to take forward any further work on how the Government would plan to tackle any educational inequality which would then arise as a result of more affluent communities finding it easier to fund their schools science provision. The teacher numbers in science are also falling and it's becoming harder to recruit new teachers, staff and pupil morale is being affected and there have been concerns outlined that some pupils might be less inclined to take up a science subject if it is perceived as being harder to pass and that overall exam grades could be affected and at the same time we've seen science and science support tick mission staff being reduced across the country while local authority education departments are trying to save money and really focusing on their core functions. I'm grateful for taking intervention. I've been hearing this debate and listening to this debate and it's very interesting. I'm just reflecting that it seems to me that when I was young science was perceived as being more difficult when my children were young the science subjects were perceived to be more difficult. If they're still perceived to be more difficult I think that's partly genuinely because they are because as I think Ian Gray mentioned numeracy is part of this and if you're not particularly numerate then science is not something that's going to come naturally to you so I think I'd like to suggest to the member and indeed to the chamber that there is an element of difficulty in here which children quite rightly see and which we have there for to accommodate. I'll take that board and I think that's reflected in the levels of pay that science graduates and engineering graduates have paid that there is that level of difficulty and simply reflecting some of the concerns that have been borne out that it may be getting to the point where the funding of science subjects and practical science is then making it even more difficult perhaps for when the member or myself was at school studying those subjects and I don't want to just have a negative speech here about the challenges that we face but I come back to this my original point and what should be the massive massive positive driver to improve science provision in schools and that is those seven million high skilled high paid jobs depending on science in the UK by 2030. Now some of the young people who will access those jobs haven't even started school yet and that gives us the opportunity to address the issues that science teachers and pupils are facing. None of those issues mentioned in the report are insurmountable and I look forward to working with the education committee next week as we hear some of that evidence and with the minister and look forward to hearing how he takes forward this science teaching agenda. I invite Dr Alasdair Allan to respond to the debate. I thank Ian Gray for tabling the motion on the learning societies group report on science education and I would certainly concur with him in his view that we should be celebrating the achievements of James Clapp Maxwell in this year that has been designated the year of light to ensure that very commemoration. The survey that we are talking about this evening contributes to the picture on the delivery of science education in our schools alongside other evidence such as Education Scotland's 3 to 18 Sciences Impact Review. The Government recognises the importance which science and broader STEM education plays in our schools. There is a strong connection between STEM learning and our economic growth sectors, a point that was touched on by Liz Smith and other speakers this evening. Curriculum for Excellence ensures that all our learners build a grounding across the range of STEM subjects through the broad general education and then have the opportunity to study for relevant national qualifications. Through learning in real life context, broader context, again referred to by Liz Smith's curriculum for excellence, also helps to ensure that young people build an awareness of the careers that STEM sectors can offer and the pathways into those jobs. Particularly, Stuart Maxwell referred to it as important that we constantly have a concentration on ensuring that all our young people view science careers as being open to them and recognise particularly the importance of encouraging young women into science careers. I thought on a thoughtful contribution from Elaine Murray. She touched on many issues, but not least on the connection between science and school and our wider national and international scientific research achievement. The picture in schools, the picture for science qualifications is very positive in terms of both their uptake and their attainment. With respect, there is simply no evidence, if I can use a scientific phrase, that schools or pupils are being put off from taking science qualifications. Last year, we saw an increase in entries at higher in all three of the main sciences, biology, chemistry and physics, with past rates holding strong. It is difficult to reconcile any of that, I must say, with some of the claims in today's motion that schools might regard pupils taking science subjects as a threat to their past rates. I will. Leslie Smith is right. I think that there are some good signs about the numbers taking higher and advanced higher in the science subjects. However, there is a big disconnect at the moment about the science baccalaureate. That plays very much to the theme of curriculum for excellence. How is he going to address that particular problem? Where I would agree with the member is in the need to promote take-up of the science baccalaureate. I would not agree with her in some of the assessments that she makes of the quality or the robustness of the baccalaureate itself, but, as with the baccalaureate and other awards that are being promoted, I fully agree about the need to promote take-up. I also believe that the uptake for sciences among S4 pupils remains very good. The proportion of passes within science at SCQF level 5 in 2014 is broadly the same as it should be said in 2013. The positive picture is also borne out in the Learning Society's group's survey results. We continue to provide a range of support for STEM learning and science qualifications, including relevant resources and materials, the STEM central website with links to STEM careers and the TIG TAG science resource for primary. The Scottish Government also provides direct funding of, importantly, £900,000 per annum to CERC, the Scottish schools education research centre, to support the professional learning of primary and secondary teachers and also technicians. That includes a programme focused on primary teachers to raise the confidence and skills in science that some of the members spoke about this evening. In terms of the debate and the issue around funding, members will be aware, and some of them have referred to it, that the vast majority of funding for primary and secondary schools funding comes as part of the annual local government finance settlement, which has been part of the debate around the budget that we have just been talking about. It is the responsibility of individual authorities to manage their budgets and to allocate the financial resources available to them. The Learning Society's group survey, significant though it is, does not provide a national picture on the level of science expenditure. It sampled approximately 2 per cent of Scottish state primary schools and 13 per cent of state secondary schools. The report itself highlights the caveat that the finding should be treated with caution and purely as an indication, and we should bear that in mind. It is worth highlighting some of the positives from the survey and, for instance, I am sure that it will be a positive view of the highlights. The point that the minister makes is well made, that it was a small sample and the report itself says that it is a small sample. Surely the response to that would be not to dismiss its findings, but rather, perhaps the Government might consider a wider sample, which would give us a clearer picture and more evidence of whether what the Learning Society has found was, in fact, the national picture or not. I certainly would not be dismissive of the report. I certainly would not be dismissive of the work that has gone into it. I certainly would keep up a very positive relationship with the Learning Society and with the Society of Edinburgh on those issues. One of the issues that has been raised, however, in the course of the debate, is the making of comparisons with other places. While Mr Malik was rightly raising the importance of physics as a subject, I feel that, like Mr Griffin, in making some of the comparisons that were made in this debate with England, the comparisons were at least open to question. The figures that were quoted for spending on science in schools do not, for instance, include the small matters of teachers' training under science centres. Where the Scottish Government would agree with the Learning Society is, however, on the importance of the dialogue that we need to have between us. I want to conclude by just giving a word about the science centres. As I mentioned, they are one of the jewels in the crown of science in schools and, more generally, throughout Scotland. I am happy to note also the importance of science festivals, not least the one in Mr Gray's constituency, whose funding was increased. I am pleased to say that, against the backdrop of cuts from another place, I believe that the commitment that this Government has for science is borne out. The work that we have done with Education Scotland and our other agencies ensures that we have good cause to feel pride in the teaching and learning of science in our schools. That concludes the English debate on Learning Society's group on Scottish Science Education report. I now close this meeting of Parliament.