SHAMEFULLY white, it鈥檚 time for Western science to face up to the embarrassing fact that it excludes black people, says 快猫短视频 (9 March, p 3, p 44). I brought this magazine鈥檚 recent interview with Elizabeth Rasekoala to science minister David Sainsbury鈥檚 attention. I asked him what the government is doing to right this wrong.
Sainsbury said black children must be helped to see that science has something exciting to offer them and that there are enough role models who can encourage them to take up science careers. Racial equality must also be transparent in the way all public bodies conduct their business. He admitted that much more needs to be done, but some progress has been made. For example, more effective targeting and use of resources is now available through the Ethnic Minorities Achievement Grant of the Standards Fund鈥攃urrently 拢154 million a year.
The government, Sainsbury said, is also working with the Teacher Training Agency to increase the number of ethnic minority teachers to 9 per cent by 2006, and to make good use of ethnic minority teaching assistants and learning mentors. Certainly, the lack of suitable role models is a disincentive to black children. The government is addressing this by providing funds to the African Caribbean Network for Science, Engineering and Technology, Manchester, headed by Rasekoala. The aim is to organise events around the country which put black children in touch with role models in science-related careers. To ensure their activities meet the needs of people from all ethnic backgrounds, organisations such as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network, London (SETNET) and the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Advertisement
In their support of SETNET and its network of information centres across Britain, the government and other supporters want every child under 16 to have the opportunity to participate in an appropriate science, technology, engineering and maths activity by the end of March 2004.
My view is that the science minister, together with the Department for Education and Skills, is taking much trouble in this delicate matter. And not before time, too.
FISH numbers the world over are plummeting as more and more, often heavily subsidised, vessels chase dwindling stocks (12 January, p 15). Elliot Morley, the fisheries minister, tells me the government is set to help poor coastal nations in their action against foreign trawlers fishing illegally in their waters.
The European Union has many agreements with countries such as Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Morocco that allow EU member states access to these countries鈥� waters. Britain generally supports such 鈥渢hird-country agreements鈥� as they maintain traditional fishing opportunities for EU trawlers in far-off waters and can provide benefits for regions dependent on fishing. But sometimes better arrangements are needed to ensure the agreements are cost-effective, environmentally sustainable and conform to EU development policy. Often pressures to expand the agreements override these needs, said Morley.
The recent European Court of Auditors report on third country fisheries agreements echoes the government鈥檚 concerns. At the Fisheries Council meeting in November, Morley emphasised the importance of detailed discussions of third-country agreements in the context of the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. These discussions are on-going and Britain will argue that every bilateral fisheries agreement should be accompanied by a rigorous stock assessment and conditional on an environmental and social impact assessment, said the fisheries minister.