The Department of Education is responsible for a crisis in science education which has seen a dramatic fall-off in student interest, according to a confidential report from a Dail committee.
In a report, due to be published later today, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Science and Education says Leaving Cert students are deserting physics and chemistry "in droves" because "it is far more difficult to obtain high points in Leaving Cert physics and chemistry than in other subject options".
The Department's continuing failure to introduce any practical element in exams "kills off the excitement of science", and is largely responsible for the decline in numbers, according to the committee.
The report also says it is "not satisfied with the Department's approach to equipping schools for science subjects".
The committee recommends that the Department of Education should no longer enjoy full control of Leaving and Junior Cert exams in science subjects.
It wants a greater role given to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the independent body which advises the Minister for Education on curriculum and assessment issues. The report blames the Department of Education and Science for a lack of urgency in introducing the new science curriculum for primary schools - even though the Republic "stands out among advanced countries in having little or no science taught in primary schools".
Planning for science at primary level began in 1990 but it will be 2006, it says, before the new primary science curriculum is in place. The committee says the Department's approach to the new curriculum "shows little evidence of good planning or execution".
The report, endorsed recently by all members of the committee, was prepared by Mr Richard Bruton, the former Fine Gael education spokesman who is now director or policy and communications for the party, and Mr Denis Naughten, the party's spokesman on trade, enterprise and employment.
It says virtually no physics or chemistry graduates are entering secondary teaching. With teaching dominated by biologists, some 30 per cent of schools do not offer chemistry and 24 per cent do not offer physics.
The report hints that additional money should be paid to science teachers for in-service training and additional qualifications although it stops short of proposing British style "hello money" of up to £6,000 for science graduates.
The report chronicles an alarming decline in the numbers taking Leaving Cert science subjects which, it says, appears to be "accelerating", despite some relaxation in marking standards in the past two years. In 1999/2000 alone, it says, 3,200 fewer science papers were taken at Leaving Cert level. The numbers taking chemistry have halved in 20 years, it says.
Today, only 10 per cent of Leaving Cert students take chemistry and only 13 per cent take physics.
The report says: "The poor development of science at primary level and the erosion of the science base at second level are huge obstacles to Ireland's ambitions." It says a major national initiative on science in education should be launched to cover areas of weakness over three years.