A LEADING business group has come up with a plan to give the manufacturing revival fresh momentum.
The sector has been beset by a crippling skills shortage that has already left it playing catch up to more advanced economies.
But the Confederation of British Industry says the situation could be improved by making high-flying teenagers study biology, chemistry and physics separately at school.
The organisation says this would give youngsters the confidence to take the subjects at A-level and university, giving employers a wider pool of talent to choose from.
The move is aimed at tackling a manufacturing skills crisis that has been keenly felt on Teesside.
The North East Process Industry Cluster claims the sector could face a shortage of more than 16,000 technical staff in the next decade.
And a recent CBI survey showed that 43% of employers are finding it difficult to recruit workers with science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills.
The organisation has now called for young people who achieve good grades in science at the age of 14 to be enrolled automatically onto the triple science GCSE.
Sarah Green, North-east regional director of the CBI, said: “The UK’s economic recovery will rely on businesses being able to access the talent they need to deliver sustainable growth.
“As the economy rebalances, we will need more highly-skilled employees, particularly for young people with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) degrees, but businesses are struggling to recruit good graduates from the UK.
“At the same time that the English Baccalaureate has effectively made GCSE history and geography compulsory, the Government has neglected the sciences.
“It must pay more attention to getting students to study physics, chemistry and biology as separate GCSEs.”
The Government’s new English Baccalaureate - or E-bac for short - has been attacked by MPs and education groups who warn it risks shoe-horning pupils into taking inappropriate qualifications. It requires pupils to score a minimum C grade in GCSE English, maths, science, history or geography and a language.
Alastair Thomson, North-east chairman of the Institute of Directors (IoD), said including a science element within the E-Bac was a good move, as it would give youngsters core skills they could then use in local industry.
But he said forcing 14-year-olds to take up GCSE science might not be in their best interests.
He said: “It’s undeniable that we have a shortage in subjects like maths and science.
“There is a gap between people with those qualifications and the needs and desires of industry to get these roles filled.
“But to compel anybody to study certain subjects is a dangerous path to go down.
“My priorities changed quite dramatically between what I wanted to do at 12 or 14 and what I ended up doing.
“So getting young people to do science could create more manufacturing skills for the future - which is a good thing - but they might not have the breadth of education.”
His concerns have been echoed by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), who say pushing teenagers down a particular career path will do little to resolve the skills crisis.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “It could have the opposite effect by turning young people off science.
“Many thousands of pupils opt for double science, which includes all three sciences and is a perfectly sound foundation to go on to advanced sciences at A-level.”
Nansi Ellis, head of education policy at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), added: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.
“Just because Michael Gove is trying, through the E-Bac, to push pupils into studying five of his compulsory GCSE subjects regardless of their aptitude and interests there is no reason to make more subjects compulsory.”
CBI research shows that more people take up religious studies (26%) and physical education (19%) than physics and chemistry (18%).