Across the country A-level and GCSE students anxiously await the results that they hope will unlock an exciting future.
As presidents of the British Science Association (BSA), a charity with a vision for science to be more representative and connected to society, and the British Academy, the UK’s national body for the humanities and social sciences, we wish them the best of luck - not just because we want them to do well but because society needs them to.
A climate emergency is engulfing the world, artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to transform society in ways we do not fully understand, driverless cars are becoming ever more commonplace, quantum computing is developing rapidly and numerous other innovations are emerging all the time.
The Stem and Shape divide
With so many challenges, we need today’s students to become the bold and effective leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers of tomorrow. To do so, they will need a truly broad range of skills, expertise and experience - and yet we fear that our education culture is failing them.
In 1959 the scientist and novelist CP Snow delivered his “Two Cultures” Rede Lecture, in which he lamented the emergence of “two polar groups” with distinct skillsets rooted in either the arts or the sciences, and a “gulf of mutual incomprehension” in between.
Decades on, this unhelpful dichotomy remains, with students often steered and slotted into one of two categories: Shape (social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy) or Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths).
Government and public discourse entrench the divide.
For a long time now, politicians have talked down the value of the arts and humanities, placing instead a heavy emphasis on exclusively Stem skills - a move underlined with the push to make the study of maths compulsory after GCSE.
This may once have been beneficial in arresting the decline in Stem skills, but what we now have is an imbalance, with maths, biology, chemistry and physics rising but English, modern foreign languages and arts-based subjects all either declining or stagnating.
As a result, students are funnelled into narrow subject pathways too early and feel they must identify as either “technical” or “creative”.
Indeed, England now has one of the tightest curricula in the developed world, and the proportion of students with qualifications from three or more subject groups has halved since 2010.
Restricted choices
According to the BSA’s Future Forum, 14- to 18-year-olds agree that their choices are too limited, there isn’t encouragement to explore both the sciences and the arts, and removing divisions would allow space to think creatively, enjoy subjects more, “see the world in a new way” and “open up more opportunities for the future”.
Meanwhile, eight in 10 (81 per cent) agree that creativity will play an important role in solving the societal challenges we will face in the next 10 years.
Yet the reductive approach to learning leads to tunnel vision in the way we structure the economy, design industrial strategies and think about big societal challenges - for instance, the rise of AI.
If we are to ensure that humanity uses AI responsibly, we will need to collaborate and combine scientific, technical and data analysis skills with historical, political, social and moral expertise. The same goes for the climate crisis.
We do not talk enough about the role of psychologists in bringing about the necessary changes to human behaviour or the role of cultural, linguistic, historical and anthropological expertise in working across cultures to find effective solutions to the effects of climate change.
As part of a wider campaign promoting the concept of Connected Knowledge, we are encouraging researchers from across all disciplines to share and celebrate what can happen when experts, sectors and subjects move beyond the rigid categories of “Stem vs Shape” and collaborate.
In uncovering examples of such collaboration, we have seen how quality of life can be drastically improved for those living with advanced dementia, how seagrass can be harnessed globally to tackle carbon emissions and how arts enterprises combine traditional falls prevention exercises with creative dance sessions to bring about a 58 per cent reduction in falls.
The power of collaboration
The narrative that pits some subjects against others is short-sighted. To thoroughly future proof ourselves, our workforce, our society, we must close the divide between Snow’s two cultures and see the value in cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Soon the next wave of A-level and GCSE students will make difficult choices around which subjects to pursue.
We urge them, their parents and teachers to consider the benefits of a broad and balanced subject portfolio across the humanities, the sciences and the social sciences.
For in a world beset by complex and urgent challenges, we need all hands on deck.
Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon is president of the British Science Association
Professor Julia Black is president of the British Academy
