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

education needs of future citizens needed (that is, all students) from the science education
for the minority group who have an interest in scientific careers. The idea of Science for
Citizenship has been helpful in the re-defining scientific literacy for the all students in the last
years of compulsory schooling. A recent example of such a curriculum is the GCSE Science
subject in England and Wales that is the mandatory component of a suite of science subjects
developed by 21 st Century Science at York University in England. The optional subject,
Additional Science, caters for those students who wish to go on with disciplinary sciences
in later years, and Applied Science for those wanting to pursue Science’s applications of
science in detail.
The OECD’s PISA (Science) project was charged with providing information to educational
systems about how well all 15 year old students are prepared for the ways Science occurs
in the lives of citizens and societies in the 21 st century. Because of this specific focus, the
PISA (Science) project has been free to define scientific literacy in terms that reflect ‘the
preparedness’ it is trying to measure. For its testing in 2006, it has done so by defining three
scientific competencies and two affective constructs that students are expected to apply to
unfamiliar real world situations involving science and technology. The three competencies
have been described in Section E above. The PISA project illustrates the fact that scientific
literacy does not have a fixed meaning or definition. Nor is it a singular notion. Each purpose
for science education can well have its own set of scientific literacies.
Recommendation
F.1 Policy makers should consider replacing the generic use of “scientific
literacy” as a goal of school science education with more precisely
defined scientific knowledge and scientific abilities, that have
meaning beyond school for the students at each of the stages of
schooling, for example, early primary, later primary, lower secondary,
last compulsory years, senior secondary.
For students in the later years of compulsory schooling consider introducing at least
two science courses, one designed for all students as future citizens, and the other
designed for students with future studies in the sciences in mind.
Prospects
A much larger cohort of students at the end of the compulsory years will be positive
about science. Such a cohort may well lead to more choosing science-based careers.
Such a Science for Citizenship approach will lead to a general public with an improved
understanding of science.
A curriculum for each stage will lead to a considerable simplifi cation for primary
teachers about what it means to teach science and consequently should produce in
their students a more positive experience of science and technology.
Pre-requisites
Assessment modes for science that will convince teachers of science at all levels that the
new goals their students are to achieve in S&T education is indeed a simplifi cation.
28