Such a degree would accept students with lower mathematical ability and “build mathematical knowledge and competence during the course of study” (see UK tackles student shortage and pages 16-17, print version only). It would address the shortage of science graduates that industry is experiencing and, more crucially, it could help to reverse the alarming decline in the number of graduates who are training to become physics teachers.

The new degree is the big idea among the 15 recommendations in the report – the Institute’s first major survey of undergraduate physics for a decade. The massive changes that have taken place in higher education since then – increased student numbers, the introduction of fees and the abolition of grants for many students, and so on – made such a report timely. The crisis in the supply of physics teachers made the timing urgent.

Most physics undergraduates say that their own teachers played a key role in their decision to study physics at university. But it is a fact that a career in teaching simply does not appeal to the vast majority of new physics graduates, most of whom would prefer not to spend their days controlling unruly adolescents and their evenings doing admin and marking homework. That said, the holidays are rather good, as a fairly new physics teacher points out on page 36 (print version only).

The UK produces about 2400 new physics graduates every year. In the early 1990s almost 600 of them trained to become teachers. Today – despite a plethora of schemes to attract science graduates into the profession – that figure has fallen to about 200. And the age profile of physics teachers makes the situation worse: 25% are over 50 and only 11% are under 30. The only solution is to redouble efforts to persuade new graduates to take up teaching, and to greatly increase the pool from which potential physics teachers can be drawn. In addition to investigating the likely demand for, and content of, the new degree, other solutions recommended by the report are closer links between university physics departments and schools, and differential salaries for teachers in shortage subjects.

It is easy to see the university physics community thinking that a new, less mathematical, degree in, say, “physical science”, is just not physics. But the current climate demands a more flexible and imaginative response. The four-year MPhys degree will train those destined for research-based careers, while the BSc will remain for those with good mathematical skills who want to study a three-year degree. It is certainly worth investigating – without delay – the prospects for a new degree taught largely in traditional physics departments.

Philosophy for all

Every time Physics World conducts a reader survey the result comes back that readers want more articles on the history and philosophy of science. In recent years we have published plenty of articles on the history of physics – about Bell, Blackett, Curie, Dirac, Oppenheimer, Planck, Rabi, Rutherford, and so on – and last year we introduced a new column “Critical point” by Robert Crease, a philosopher and historian of science. This month we are going one step further by asking readers what they think about philosophy. To say any more might bias the answer, but we encourage all readers to participate in the survey.