Science education policy-making: eleven emerging issues; 2008 - OEI

Introduction
In July 2007 UNESCO, ICASE and ASTA sponsored, organised and held a World
Conference on Science and Technology Education in Perth, Western Australia. At the end
of a very stimulating and successful week involving more than 1000 participants from
many countries The Perth Declaration on Science and Technology Education was
issued. It expresses strong concern about the current state of science and technology
education worldwide and its failure to play its part in meeting the pressing societal
issues of the 21st Century. The Declaration is an important development from the earlier
contribution of UNESCO (along with ICSU, the International Council for Science) when
these two bodies called scientists, activists and policy makers together in Budapest in
1999 at a World Conference on Science to discuss the role of science for sustainable
development. Out of Budapest came a Declaration on Science and a Framework for
Action.
The Perth Declaration argues the case for the educational infrastructure in science
and technology education that is essential if the hopes in the Budapest Declaration
and Framework are to be realised in this early 21 st Century. It calls on governments
to respond to a number of suggestions that would establish the structural conditions
that will enable science and technology education to fulfil its potential as a key factor in
modern societies that are increasingly dependent on, and influenced by science and its
applications in technology. The quality of school education in science and technology
has never before been of such critical importance to governments. There are three
imperatives for this critical importance.
The first relates to the traditional role of science in schooling, namely the identification,
motivation and initial preparation of those students who will go on to further studies for
careers in all those professional fields that directly involve science and technology. A
sufficient supply of these professionals is vital to the economy of all countries and to
the health of their citizens. In the 21 st Century they are recognised everywhere as key
players in ensuring that industrial and economic development occurs in a socially and
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