Challenges for Science Education

Scientific knowledge is the common heritage of humankind. It is the only this

treasure of humankind that can provide a possible remedy to conquer inequality
and to bring about an acceptable quality of life and a purpose, for a majority of
the people of the world. A case should be made for science and science
education in the developing world, a case for optimal support for science and
education even in the poorest and the least-developed of the countries of the
world. Some of the main problems that should be overcome for a sustainable and
proper science education are;

Inadequate teacher compensation and professional development to

attract, prepare and retain high-quality teachers,
Insufficient number of science and technology teachers taking active role
in the preparation of the programs,
The insufficient in-service training of the science teacher in the transition
state of a new program,
Compartmentalized subjects taught by teachers isolated within and across
departments,
Students generally lack motivation and have low self confidence in
learning,
Persistent achievement gaps in science and math among many student
subgroups,
demographic changes,
The huge numbers of the students in the class,
The informational education orienting students towards only exam
achievement,
The broken link with other lessons,
Insufficient physical conditions of schools (less laboratory opportunities),
The intensive curriculum but insufficient time allocation for science
education and
The instruction of lesson in an information level and students in passive
position (only listening and writing), teachers in active position (writing on
the board and teaching in a classical way),

In this paper, the problems of challenges for science education and solutions to
overcome these problems are presented. The lack of epistemological role of
science is emphasized and the productive use of history and philosophy of
science is proposed in science education.

Todays schools need to prepare all students, rather than just a few, to
participate in some

form of tertiary education. To do this, programmes of learning need to be more

custom-
ised and personalised rather than offering the one-size-fits-all model that many
schools

now offer. Schools need to focus on building students learning power or capacity
to learn,

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Annex A: Inspired by Science

and their ability to do things with knowledge rather than rewarding them for
acquiring

and storing bits of knowledge for possible future use. Schools need to focus on
helping

students develop certain basic competencies that are required in all areas of life,
compe-

tencies such as thinking and working with others, rather than helping them to
accumulate

knowledge-based credentials.

Young people need to understand processes, systems and relationships, to

appreciate the

connections between knowledge systems rather than the details of the systems
them-

selves. The ability to communicate ones learning and to work collaboratively

have be-

come paramount and need to be developed more effectively through school. As

part of

this there needs to be much greater educationally appropriate use of information

and

communications technologies and digital media including the ability to work in

multiple

modes.

Educationalists who think this way are strongly critical of the traditional
academic curriculum, the view of knowledge that underpins it and the role it has
played in sorting stu-
dents for future employment. However, they do not devalue knowledge: rather
they are

advocating a different view of knowledge. In this literature, knowledge is seen

not as stuff

you get but rather as a context or domain for building students capacity for
thinking and

learning through using a range of modes such as text-based, visual, oral, musical
and so

on. This work is also influenced by recent developments in cognitive science, in

particular

on how people learn. The next section looks briefly at some of this work.

5. Considering the options

Changes in society, schooling and science itself, coupled with a lack of clarity of
the pur

pose of science education, have produced school science programmes that are
not op

timally meeting the needs of any of our students neither high achievers headed
for

science related careers nor the majority who need science for citizenship. Solving
this

problem requires a long term strategy that takes into account purposes,
pedagogies, as-

sessment practices, teacher beliefs and values, resources and the wider
community.

In this section we provide one possible scenario of how science education could
look dif

ferent in the future. The purpose of providing this scenario is two-fold. Firstly, we
aim to

stimulate debate about what really matters in science education. Any curriculum
decision

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Annex A: Inspired by Science

involves trade-offs: thus our aim in including this scenario is to bring to the
surface deeply-

held - but often tacit - beliefs about what good science education should do.
What can

be given up, and what needs to be retained? The second purpose is to

concretise some

of the ideas discussed in this paper, and provide some practical ideas about
possible first

step