BBC Education

All young people should learn about scientific reasoning up to the age of 19, the president of the Royal Society says.

Lord May of Oxford argues that reasoning should be considered the “fourth R”, alongside reading, writing and arithmetic.

He says he is “alarmed” by a lack of an “explicit commitment” to science in plans for a diploma system for 14 to 19 year olds in England.

Lord May is also critical of a decline in the take-up of science at A-level. Entries this summer in physics, chemistry and maths were respectively 34%, 16% and 22% lower than in 1991, he said.

Lord May will tell a Chartered Management Institute dinner in London that the long-term decline in these A-level subjects will have “deeply damaging effects on the country”.