Lack of technician support is a barrier to practical lessons

Lack of technician support, funding, access to facilities and time were all cited as barriers to conducting practical lessons

Practical work supports understanding of chemistry and provides the opportunity to learn skills that are useful not only for progression into further study and careers in the sciences, but also more widely. We believe practical work should remain a core part of a chemistry curriculum.

Among the 42% of UK mainstream state schools that were understaffed for science technicians, 57% stated a lack of technician support as a barrier to running practicals. Schools without adequate technician coverage are also more likely to report other barriers to providing practical work:

insufficient funding
(45% vs. 25%)

difficulty in accessing equipment
(42% vs. 23%)

difficulty in getting access to labs
(33% vs. 22%)

difficulty in accessing consumables
(24% vs. 11%)

Science technician numbers per school

We have previously reported on the falling level of science technician support in schools. The Science Technician Workforce in English Secondary Schools 2020 report revealed that regions in the north of England have considerably lower levels of science technician support than in London or the south of England. Also, schools with a less affluent pupil intake tended to have less technician support than those with a more affluent intake. The Science Teaching Survey 2022 reveals a similar picture in terms of regional variation in England (the average number of technicians, full-time and part-time, per school is shown in brackets):

Mainstream state schools in UK (2.4)
Mainstream state schools in South East England (2.9) and East of England (3.0)
Mainstream state schools in North East England (1.7) and North West England (2.2)
Private schools in UK and Ireland (3.0)
Selective state schools in UK (3.1)

It is worth noting that these figures do not take into account school size or the proportion of full-time and part-time technicians and so should be considered a first step towards building a better understanding of the technician landscape in the future.

The technician’s got to get to all of the classrooms at the start of the lesson and tidy everything away, but sometimes they might not arrive until twenty minutes into your hour-long lesson, because there’s literally one person servicing the entire science department. We also have the problem that if they’re off sick, or on a training course, or anything like that, then there’s nobody to collect, deliver equipment, sort anything out.

What we are doing

We will continue to champion and support school science technicians who we believe play an important role in supporting the delivery of creative and inspiring science education.

Illustration of teacher pointing up.PNG

Our action plan for technicians is based on the four pillars of the Science Council’s Technician Commitment: visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability. Read more about how we are supporting technicians in chemistry.

In our 2020 Science Technician Workforce in English Secondary Schools report we set out recommendations for the Government. These include a review of technician pay and a call to consider policy measures that might encourage schools to increase their science technician provision and support.

We have a wide range of support for existing school science technicians:

We have an extensive collection of practical resources, articles and support that can help technicians to support the delivery of creative and inspiring practical demonstrations or lessons to pupils at all levels of education.
Our education website has a series of to help with practicals.
Technicians who are Royal Society Of 91AV members can apply for professional registration (RSci, RSciTech).
Members also get access to careers support that includes a toolkit, a career consultation, mentoring and more.