“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.” So wrote US astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1929, but was he right? How much should science be an exploration of the senses — as well as a test of know­ledge and intellectual flexibility? Does a physics student need to peer through a telescope to grasp the enormity of the Universe? Must a potential chemist grapple with the tap of a titration flask to appreciate the subtleties of reaction synthesis? The UK government is about to take a massive — and massively misguided — gamble that they do not.

Education officials in Britain have decided to remove assessed practical work from the landmark A-level qualification, taken by students aged 16–18 and a prerequisite for university. In doing so, the officials and the school science they oversee have taken a huge step backwards. The move could see an entire generation denied the opportunity to develop an interest in the practical experience of doing science.

The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), which has made the change, says that such fears are overblown. Practical skills will still be tested, it says, and the results presented as a separate pass/fail mark to accompany the existing A-level letter grade. Schools will be inspected. Practical skills, Ofqual promises, will survive.

There are two problems with this. First, as institutions told Ofqual when it floated the idea last year, universities will still focus on the mark — how else will they differentiate between the thousands of applicants? Second, if the result of a practical test is seen as secondary to the overall grade, then schools will be less concerned with it. UK education has become a ruthless marketplace in which schools are judged by how well they can shift students on to the next stage. Anything that interferes with that is unlikely to be a priority. Students, especially those at poorer-performing schools, will simply be offered fewer lessons in practical science.

As John Baruch pointed out in a World View article last month, the UK change comes at a time when other nations, China chief among them, are placing increased emphasis on practical skills in school-leaving exams (see Nature 507, 141; 2014). The United Kingdom is poised to send its science students into the global competition for scientific and technical jobs with one arm tied behind their backs.

Ofqual made its decision in the face of fierce criticism from leading scientists and science advocates. There were certainly problems with testing practical skills through coursework — long viewed by students as the soft underbelly of academic assessment — but, in this case, the proposed solution is worse. As Imran Khan, chief executive of the British Science Association, puts it: “You wouldn’t dream of assessing other practical subjects — like languages, music, or design — by a written test alone, and the same should be true of science.” We are back to Hubble’s five senses, and the need to stimulate and extend them.

Practical experiments teach the reality of science, with all its frustrations and rewards. The real world, after all, does not always proceed smoothly. As the old joke among physics teachers goes: if an experiment smells, it is chemistry; if it moves, it is biology; and if it doesn’t work, it is physics.