Calls for Welsh teaching incentives to match England's
Eluned Parrott, head of Wales at the Institute of Physics, warned Wales had fewer physics-trained teachers (174) than secondary schools (205) in 2024.
She told the Senedd's education committee no one measure is going to be a silver bullet but evidence shows teacher training incentives work.
'That's why we're calling on the Welsh Government to increase our physics teacher trainee bursary from £15,000 to match England's £29,000,' she said.
'We need a bold reset to recruit, retain and retrain the next generation of physics specialists to help secure the future of physics in Welsh schools."
Ms Parrott, a former politician, said only seven specialist physics teachers qualified through Wales' initial teacher education (ITE) system from an intake of 10 in 2023/24.
She said: 'The intake allocation target was 67, meaning the intake fell 86% short…. The intake allocation target has since been increased to 72. It is unlikely to be reached."
Warning of systemic challenges, Ms Parrott expressed concerns about investment in Welsh ITE compared with centres in other parts of the UK.
Contrasting the two, she told the committee: 'You could go to study in an ITE centre that has a full-time professional and professorial level of ITE tuition or you could go to somewhere else where they're struggling to recruit part-time tutors to help you.'
Ms Parrott, a former Liberal Democrat member of the then-Assembly, suggested setting up a centre of excellence for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
She explained: 'It is important to have ITE centres spread out across the country but – rather than spreading that expertise – maybe create something that is robust, academically respected, driving improvements across ITE.'
Ms Parrott said: 'I think there's also an equity issue here with the bursaries and what that means because you cannot realistically live on the bursary that you would get in Wales."
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