Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to British Association for the Advancement of Science (Commitment Statement)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Grocers Hall, City of London
Source: Thatcher Archive: transcript
Editorial comments: 1230 onwards.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 1680
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Economic policy - theory and process, Education, Industry, Foreign policy (Western Europe - non-EU), Science & technology

Lord Gregson, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have only a few minutes, but I will try to make the most of these. Today is the day we hope to complete our business in Parliament, but that depends on how their Lordships will behave. I will have to get back fairly quickly: Nevertheless, I could not resist the opportunity to come.

This Association—The British Association—started in 1831. That was the year in which Faraday discovered electro-magnetic induction. It is interesting to note that Faraday did not start with a university education. He started by being apprenticed to a printer, a printer who actually printed some of the remarkable scientific papers that were being produced at that time. He knew how to read and write although he didn't have a National Curriculum to guide him. Then his interest in matters scientific brought him in contact with Humphrey Davy who of course realised that here was someone with a tremendously enquiring mind. It's a marvellous story and it has quite a lot to tell us.

I think if when I first entered politics I could have had one ambition fulfilled for Britain, it would have been that young people, when considering their future careers, should have a great ambition to find those careers in industry and commerce. Hitherto, it had been in administration that we had excelled; in the professions; in law; in all those things which we had taught to many countries overseas within the British Empire. Perhaps this had taken away from the central source of wealth of this country which had come with the Industrial Revolution with its enterprise in adapting the basic science to raising the standard of living of the people. But somehow, the first generation from those very successful entrepreneurs went into the professions, and not enough into science and technology, manufacturing and commerce.

Ladies and gentlemen, that great ambition of mine is now being fulfilled. I started my career in science. In trying to analyse it backwards, I find that certain things are very obvious. First, I'd got a fascination for science: and science is a fascination, just as much as the theatre or writing is a fascination. By being taught it extremely well by a remarkable teacher at school, as a wonderful mystery story, as having many many problems that could be solved; I was taught it, not only by the simple experiments that we did in the laboratory, but by being shown some of the wonders of [end p1] the world and some of the problems that science had unlocked. I am afraid that this goes back quite a long way: in the 1930's you know, we were getting radio; there was just television; there were the plastics materials that were just coming onto the scene—there was so much going on. And so one learnt that we desperately need greater interest in science: we need people who are not only good science graduates, but who know how to teach it in our schools. And if I may say so, the basis of it all is having good mathematics teachers, because children tend to be very much afraid of mathematics. It's like telling them “learn all your curriculum in Greek” when they don't know the basic language. And if mathematics is not taught well—and it should be taught well—in spite of all the communication aids that we have, and with the work, for example, of the Open University, they will never get on to understanding the fundamentals of science.

So, really good teaching—not only the paper qualifications, but the capacity to teach—is essential. You must teach in just the same way that you sell products in industry—with enthusiasm. Only then do you begin to sell your viewpoint and arouse the interest of children.

So education and the way pupils are taught are tremendously important, but there is something else that is very, very important too: that is, having other people take an interest in what you are doing. This is what we are now getting—the cooperation and the interest, at an early stage, of both local and the larger industries with schools. Of course, at school, you will always have some children who are quite brilliant and who don't need their interest to be inspired. Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the fertility of their minds which may itself lead to problems in that they need to progress faster than others.

With Lord Porter in the audience, I must acknowledge how much the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street has done with its science lectures and with its mathematics lectures at the weekends in stimulating those young people. There are still unfortunately a large number of young people who find education boring. You know, I used to say to my children “Come on, we must go out on Sunday and look at the Art Gallery” : “Oh Mummy, that's education, that's boring” .

Now there are other children—thousands of them—who can see some point in what they are being taught. Many of you have compacts with schools [end p2] in which you are linking their academic success with their chances in the world outside: you are guaranteeing them a certain number of jobs if they come up to standard in certain subjects. But it goes beyond this, to a much better understanding of industries and of their scientific and technological base. This is the age of knowledge, the age of science. Whether you are in the pharmaceutical or the engineering industries or in other more mundane industries such as textiles, furnishings and carpets, they all have to use the latest technology which science has created. We have to help our young people understand the basics of science and of technology and be able to use them. This they will now be able to do through the actions underlying the Commitments you have entered into in cooperation with the British Association.

I was in Switzerland recently and, as you know, they are a fantastically successful country—and so are we! They are a country which could not rely on basic resources because they hadn't any. For their success they had to rely on the enterprise of their people and the success of their industry and their commerce. I was looking particularly at their chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Some of my previous concepts of the scenarios for success of such industries went for a Burton. First, they said to me “Only 2½%; of our market is in Switzerland, so we had to look at the world outside; we had to have new products; and we had to look ten years ahead” . They therefore had to put a great deal in, in both product development and in cost cutting. The particular company to which I was speaking also happens to have three subsidiaries in Britain, which pleased me enormously. They said to me “Yes, of course we come to Britain: your universities and polytechnics are excellent; your research work is excellent; and we find that we can do business with your people and your workforce, and it's a great success.” Wasn't that terrific? I came away thinking that I must go to Switzerland again. Here there were other people, excelling as they do in their own fields, coming here for our good universities and our good research. And now we are going to add to that—this tremendous thing that has been my ambition for young people to encourage them to want a career in industry by linking up our educational system with industry in the way in which you have committed yourselves.

And this is happening when some people are talking only about economics—and how dull economics can be, which is why I am not making a speech about it! Yes, I know it's vital to keep your costs down, to keep your [end p3] productivity up, and of course you have to keep your investments going, but equally you have an enormous world of opportunity ahead which derives wholly from research. It really is “opportunity driven” , and the young people are the first to want to take advantage of that opportunity. Enterprise has returned, and they deserve to have a supreme education in this country to fit them for this. And so, yes, you are bringing together industries and the schools both by helping the pupils themselves and by helping the teachers to explain to their pupils what the opportunities are, and giving us in this country a great opportunity to attain our previous pre-eminence.

We already have this in some of our industries, but may I say this to you: so much of what we import is highly sophisticated engineering. I want the engineering industry to be pre-eminent once again in this country. We want more of it back here, we want not to have to import so much of the heavy equipment and of the latest automated machinery. We will do this, first, by perhaps getting some inward investment, but just as we have pre-eminence in chemicals and pharmaceuticals, so I want our engineering industry back. Teachers, are you listening?

As I went amongst you, I heard that people are coming back to do research here. So let us just enlarge our minds, enlarge our ideas of the opportunities, and show our faith in our young people, their talents and their abilities, and in our teachers’ ability to teach them, by expressing and confirming our commitment between industry and the education system, to build up not only greater prosperity here, but to build up, once again, Britain's influence in the world.

And may I say finally, that one of the things that always gives me inspiration is knowing that any public opinion poll—not the ones about politics, although they usually come back at election time, but never mind about that—about “What do you think about science and about Britain's reputation in science?” shows that the public thinks very highly of it and that it matters to the people of this country that we have a high reputation throughout the world.

I regret that I cannot stay for your lunch. I am sure that you will have a very good speech from your President over lunch. May I say what a great pleasure it has been for me to come here for a really outstanding opportunity to see what is being given to our young people and an even greater future for our country. Thank you for entering into this commitment which I hope will fully succeed.