Summary: Science education of the future

Science for all - vision and suggestion for a strategy

Science studies in the Danish educational system face tremendous challenges in order to prepare individuals to the demands of a society in which the amount of knowledge seems to explode, globalisation is on everybody’s lips and where innovation, wealth and risk are inevitable results of development of science and technology. This report by a working group appointed by the Danish Government presents a strategy and a range of initiatives necessary to prepare science education in Denmark for the future.

The Danish Government and the Danish Parliament are currently carrying out comprehensive reforms of the Danish educational system. Of these, the following in particular are worth mentioning: the reform of the primary school and of primary school teacher education, the newly proposed reformation of the upper secondary school and the proposal for new University legislation. In June 2002, the Government presented its overall educational visions in a plan of action entitled Better Education and an independent working group,

Science Education of the Future, was established based on this plan. The work group comprises science educators, researchers in science education, scientists from public and private research and representatives from science centres. The group’s task was to devise a strategy for science education in Denmark at all levels that would contribute to the achievement of the Government’s political intentions.

In this report, which is targeted at local and national authorities, the directors of educational institutions and other decisionmakers, the work group presents its plan for science education in Denmark. The recommendations addressing the entire educational system are consistent with the thoughts that have been presented by three parallel working groups, focusing on the subjects mathematics, Danish and foreign languages respectively. The four working groups jointly consider the establishment of better links between the different levels of education as well as the promotion of better interaction between the different subjects as central goals for future reforms of the educational system. All four groups find that the basis for achieving these goals is the creation of “teacher teams”, which should function as local forums for the organisation and carrying out of education.

The working group points out three major challenges for science education in the future: the challenge of democracy, the challenge of selfperception and readiness of action and the challenge of recruitment. In this context the challenge of democracy can be described as the challenge to educate all citizens with respect to science and technology, providing them with the competencies necessary to make decisions concerning problems related to these areas and to participate in the democratic process. The challenge of selfperception and readiness of action is related to the challenge of the educational system to support young people in their development of a better understanding of themselves, the world around them and how to act competently in this world. Finally, with the challenge of recruitment the working group points out the need of society to recruit sufficient numbers of young people to tertiary education programmes in the sciences.

Science for all

Everybody involved in the educational system must work from the mutual understanding that scientific literacy is necessary for all people and that society needs all people to be scientifically literate. Teachers and administrators should regard students’ interest in science as a criterion for success, and special attention should be paid to young girls’ and women’s interest and participation in science and science education. These recommendations are based on a broader and more modern understanding of science and scientific literacy than is generally applied in educational practice today. It is thus the view of the working group that science as an object of science education should be regarded as an influential, necessary and sometimes problematic actor in the knowledge society, as a spectrum of collectively organised epistemological processes, as the epistemological foundation of modern Western cultures, as well as an impressive amount of wellestablished knowledge.

Science competencies

The notion of science competencies should be the foundation for the description of curricular goals at all levels as a means to Summary: Science education of the future

ensure the connection between the different educational levels and the interaction between different subject matters. This will ensure a better flow in the educational system and contribute to a greater clarity when it comes to pupils’ and students’ learning. The Ministry of Education should initiate the development of competencebased national curricula and of new ways of evaluating, testing and teaching in accordance with the use of science competencies. In addition, local authorities should be obliged to develop and offer local course plans and curricula based on the idea of competencies. These should be based on four competencies, namely empirical, representational, reflection- and modelling competencies.

Strengthening the science education culture

The strengthening of the science education culture at all educational levels must happen through the local use of teacher teams consisting of colleagues representing a broad spectrum of science teaching competencies. Leaders of educational institutions are responsible for the creation of conditions for initiating team building and development.

It is recommended that science education in grades 1-6 should continue to exist in the form of the integrated subject “science/technology”. However this subject should be strengthened by ensuring the development of local curricula, by increasing requirements made on learning facilities and resources and by demanding that teachers of this subject should have proper training. In grades 7-9, a local coordination of the three existing science subjects (physics/ chemistry, biology and geography) must be ensured. This will provide a better foundation for both indepth treatments of specific scientific subjects as well as for interdisciplinary projects. All the science subjects should carry equal weight in the final exams in primary school. School leaders should ensure that only teachers who are fully qualified to teach science subjects do so.

In secondary school it is recommended that a general education in the sciences should be ensured, based on the understanding that science is for all. Thus, all students at secondary level should be offered a general education in the sciences with the specific aims of providing the necessary science competencies for selfperception and action competence, a better understanding of the surrounding world and participation in the democratic process. With the purpose of ensuring a more balanced recruitment of both genders and more homogeneous qualifications from those recruited, it is recommended that all secondary level students be offered a specific Science Programme including the subjects physics, chemistry and biology on an equal footing. It is also recommended that universities and other tertiary level institutions accept this as a common standard for admittance to all programmes in science, medicine, engineering, agriculture and pharmacy. The competencies required to teach in upper secondary school should be more broadly defined, allowing employment of, for example, engineers and veterinarians in order to increase diversity among secondary school teachers. Upper secondary school teachers should ensure the necessary resources to initiate pedagogical debate as well as supporting educational development focusing on evaluation and competencebased teaching.

Concerning the tertiary level, it is recommended that the focused science educational efforts during past years will be continued and strengthened - for example by adding specific demands in contracts between universities and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology. In areas with a large gender imbalance among employees, it is recommended that the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology use contracts to actively reward institutions making serious efforts to redress this imbalance. Leaders of the institutions of higher education are obliged to ensure continuous inservice training of all teachers in the areas of pedagogy, teaching and education. Regarding the employment of new scientific staff at the universities, teaching competencies must be considered equally as important as research competencies.

Strengthening teachers’ competences

Through increased financial support to inservice training, local authorities should in general strengthen the competencies of teachers, with the focus being on teacher teams. To ensure the framework for this inservice training, a number of local development coordinators should be appointed. An initial reform of primary school teacher education must ensure that teachers focus on fewer subjects. Universities and centres of tertiary level education should collaborate to develop strategies for making the concept of competencies the foundation of teacher training.

In relation to tertiary level science education, greater emphasis should be put on communication skills. This means that elements of pedagogy, philosophy, psychology and sociology of education as well as communication should be part of programmes followed by science students and thus future researchers and teachers at universities. Ultimately, the establishment of specific programmes focusing on teaching and communicating the sciences should be considered in order to promote a higher status of these areas.

In the long term, the overall system used for teacher education should be entirely reformulated. A committee aimed at evaluating and analysing the Danish teacher education system should be formed.

Three strategic areas of action

International and especially Nordic experiences demonstrate unambiguously that in order to realise recommendations presented in this report efforts must be directed at three areas.

Firstly, five national resource centres for the sciences should be established with a yearly budget of 18.5 million Danish crowns (approximately 2.5 million Euros). The main purpose of these centres will be to support teachers in science at all levels of education. The support will concern ideas, materials and experience to help develop the new competencebased teaching and interdisciplinary projects. The aforementioned local development coordinators are to be attached to these centres.

Second, a Science Education Development Foundation should be established with a yearly budget of 90 million Danish crowns (approximately 12 million Euros) to support local efforts to strengthen and renew science education at all levels. The foundation should ensure a national coordination and could, for example, support activities for pupils at local science centres, cooperation between the educational system and industry and contribute with scholarships for inservice training in the science subjects.

Finally, science education should become a strategic area of research under the forthcoming Danish Strategic Science Council.