16 - Science education resources for the developing countries

Summary

Abstract: Considerable attention is paid to how we in the so-called developed countries teach science and to how our students learn it. Even though similar questions are asked by scientists and science teachers in all countries, one finds that resources available for science education in developing countries are often scarce but not unobtainable.

Introduction

Resources for science and science education are often quite limited in countries less wealthy than those of, say, North America or the European Union. Leaving aside for the moment those resources for scientific research - equipment for experimentation, computer hardware and software for theoretical and/or data analyses, communication infrastructure (journals, Internet access, etc.), and opportunity for collaboration with scientists outside the country - one confronts the needs of a country for the development and advancement of its science education system: equipment for experiments and classroom demonstrations, computer hardware and software for simulations and/or data analysis, communication infrastructure (textbooks, Internet access, etc.), and collaboration with science teachers inside and outside the country. That the needs of the scientific enterprise and those of the education enterprise are so similar is not surprising, given that good science can enrich teaching, and engaging teaching can compel one, student or teacher alike, to ask new questions and, hence, to conduct new, enriched science.

Education needs

To many policy makers in wealthy and comparatively poor countries alike, enriched science education necessarily means increased funding, which, in the zero-sum game of politics, means less money for other national needs. Further, crafters of policy quite often have difficulty dissociating the needs for science, as in research, from those of education.