Band 6+: You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. It is observed that in many countries not enough students are choosing to study science as a subject. What are the causes? And what will be the effects on society? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from own knowledge or experience. You should write at least 250 words.

Nowadays, in a lot of countries around the world, science seems to be an increasingly unpopular study subject. I find this is the case because of the decreasing number of young people who want to go to university. This is also reinforced by the fact that having a degree does not ensure a high paying job like it once did. These changes are worrying since they may lead to the stagnation of technology and science.

Although higher education was once regarded as a social elevator, providing a way to increase one’s quality of life and standing in society, this seems to not be the case anymore. Take Portugal for instance, where studying for five years to complete a bachelor’s and master’s degree is rewarded with a salary of around 1.000€ a month, only 200€ above the minimum salary. This makes it so many young people are discouraged from continuing their studies: why spend so much effort for almost no compensation?

This has clear consequences such as science becoming less studied which, in turn, may have other effects such as stagnant technology markets. Worryingly, this could potentially be a never-ending spiral where less students cause stagnant markets which lessen the interest in technological fields, such as science, which in turn cause even less students in those areas.

Even though the decreasing growth of markets is an issue, it is not the only one. Without new science students, there won’t be any new ideas. This will make it so research develops at a snail’s pace. With so many problems yet to solve, it should be every government’s top priority to fight back against this trend. As a potential solution, I propose countries increase tax breaks to students who have at least a bachelor’s degree. These tax breaks could be dependent on the highest diploma people hold in order to encourage the pursuit of even higher levels of education such as master and doctorate degrees. By doing this, governments would be able to ensure young people go into all fields, not just science.

In conclusion, I find that less people choose to pursue science due to the decreasing compensation of all higher education courses. This could have disastrous consequences such as the stagnation of markets and research. In order to fight this, I argue that tax breaks exclusively for people who have finished their degrees could be a potential solution.