Editorial
Science education in decline
Take urgent steps to reverse the trend
The falling trend of students' enrolment in science at secondary level of education, as found in a study, has an alarming signal for the country. That is because, the preparatory phase for higher education in science begins from the secondary level.
The study conducted by a local private think tank further shows that most important among the reasons behind this regressive trend is ever-declining interest of students as well as their parents in science education. And this has to do with factors like poor standard of science teaching and of teachers, especially in rural schools, common fear among students that science subjects are hard to learn, higher costs of the education.
If the decline continues unabated, a bleak prospect awaits the nation's future. We will fall short of technical manpower including engineers, doctors, scientific researchers and academicians. The running of its existing industrial and scientific institutions, far less establishing new ones, will become problematic.
In a bid to find a way out of this negative situation affecting science education, educationists, scientists, academicians, representatives from the government's education department, journalists and guardians discussed issues pertinent to the problem at a roundtable jointly organised by Freedom Foundation and this paper. It came up with a set of recommendations, the salient points of which include: reducing the cost of science education; supplying the science students with textbooks that are less voluminous, interesting and easy to understand; appointing qualified teachers with sound mathematical background in the schools and providing monetary and other incentives to teachers and students. Also stress was laid on better and intensive lesson planning by teachers for the classes; holding regular science fairs and launching massive campaign in the media.
At the policy level forming a national taskforce to address the decline and reforming education curricula was stressed.
It is hoped that the government would take these
recommendations seriously and roll back the declining trend.
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