Getting Real: What must be the goal of Philippine Science Education?

Just like most of our curriculum planners, I envision a basic science education that will make our learners scientifically, technologically and environmentally literate. These have been termed as the ‘key goals’ of science education. Efforts towards the attainment of this vision are rather captured by jargons that popularized the thematic goals of science education in this time and age like Delors’ pillars for learning to know, to do, to be and to live together and UNESCO’s education through, in and for science.

So much has changed in science as it goes along with the change in social landscape. There has been observed modification in its practice, the nature of public engagement with it, post-modern criticisms about its certainty, knowledge explosion, nature of schooling, population of students, nature of youth and the like. Change has become the central driver for goal refocusing. To reach a full circle, these goals are expected to congruently respond consistent to these changes. Therefore, my idea of a strong basic science education is one that will successfully equip the learners with knowledge, skills and attitudes they need in coping with these challenges.

But what knowledge, skills and attitudes are worth developing? While other countries are so concerned of promoting programs wrapped in catchy phrases like ‘science education for all’, ‘science education for citizenship’, ‘science education for economic development’, “science education for empowerment and equity’ and so on, there may be a lot of teachers in this country who have been teaching for so long without being aware of the national goals for basic science education. Count me in.

Our basic science education experiences continue to haunt us in our search for answers to the questions: “Why many people do not love science?” “What has gone wrong with our science education?” This could be one of the reasons why we cannot even with the Australians and Americans in rallying for a basic science education for equity, for economic growth and etc., because we have not fully attained yet the goal of educating our people in science. International test results attest to this.

Anyway, it is not just our country that is plagued with problems in science education. It has been reported that a crisis occurs worldwide in terms of declining performance, negative attitudes to science, decreasing participation in post-compulsory science subjects, shortage of science qualified people in the skilled workforce and a shortage of qualified science teachers.

In the Philippine context, I think there is a need to refine the goals of basic science education. The current K to 12 science curriculum envisions a scientifically and technologically literate learner. Its goals cut across the three holistic learning domains: understanding and applying scientific knowledge; performing scientific processes and skills; and developing and demonstrating scientific attitudes and values. Having attained these goals, learners are expected to become critical and creative problem solvers, responsible stewards of nature, innovative and inventive thinkers, informed decision-makers and effective communicators. While these goals of basic science education are presumed as given, of which I fully subscribe, I would like to add two other elements that are of marked importance in the real world. The first one is about a pillar for learning dubbed as ‘learning to live together’ and the other one is career awareness.

Our planet, now more than ever, is currently faced with a host of environmental challenges. Provision of opportunities for students to work together as a team in doing science practical works should be one of the goals of basic science education. For what value there is in living together? Much like a husband and a wife, personality clash and conflicting views are issues that must be addressed just so harmony prevails. Learning to express views and to listen to others are important life skills which can be developed when students are allowed to work as a team. We never knew where the challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and overpopulation will take us from here. But the song cautions us, “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one.” This is the reason why I included environmental literacy as one of the visions of basic science education.

In a recent talk I had, a group of high school students were asked if who wanted to become a scientist. I saw two hands out of a hundred! And yet, science high school students they are. This simple survey corroborated with Ibe’s (1997) observation that very little of the career goal is actually implemented in science classrooms although the Department of Science and Technology offered national scholarships for BS degrees in the breeder and applied sciences. It is in the news that our performance in science, technology, engineering and innovation is falling behind other countries. We are short of scientists. While the American science education put a premium on science career as goals, I think it is high time too for the Philippines to inform our basic education students the opportunities there are in pursuing careers in science. This is the reason why I literally included in the said talk the opportunities DOST offers for science-based courses and related success stories of poor but intelligent DOST scholars. Then again, exposing them to various science careers would have been very ideal.

On top of these, the two important goals of basic science education as reflected in the current K to 12 curriculum: (1) developing a strong knowledge foundation in science and technology and their importance in everyday life; and (2) mastery of the scientific method as a skill in solving real-life problems - must be sustained and reinforced. How? In the words of one of my classmates back in the University, “There should [always] be hands-on experiments, no matter how crude they may be…to fortify the learned scientific information.”

After all, that is the very nature of science.