Course-5 Understanding Disciplines and School Subjects pmd

Science Education at Higher Secondary School level
At the higher secondary stage,
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science should be introduced as separate disciplines,
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with emphasis on experiments/technology and problem solving.
Issues and challenges in teaching Science
Position Paper of National Focus Group on Science identifies some issues with refer
teaching of Science:
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Lack of infrastructure: resource rooms, activity rooms, laboratories, material
for models, toys, tools, appropriate books for reference, encyclopaedias,
dictionaries, multimedia and internet facility.
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Overloaded syllabus: The most important consideration while developing a
science curriculum is to ensure a reduced emphasis on mere information and
provide greater exposure to what it means to practice science.
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Inadequacy of textbooks based on constructivist methods.
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Instrument of social change: Need to use science curriculum as an instrument
of social change to reduce the divide related to economic class, gender, caste,
religion and region.
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Present day science education develops competence but does not encourage
inventiveness and creativity.
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Check Your Progress 2
Explain the issues and challenges of teaching Science
2.3.3.3. Place of Science in School Curriculum and Organization of Science
Curriculum
Place of Science in School Curriculum
It is said that man’s future is stubbornly linked to scientific advances and the
development of productive activity. Therefore, science must find a respectable place in the
school curriculum. All over the world, this feeling is generated. In India, through the efforts
of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), science has been
made a compulsory subject throughout the school stage.
The views of Kothari Commission and UNESCO’s International Commission on the
Development of Education are: Kothari Commission (1964-66) stated that “We lay a great
emphasis on making science an important element in the school curriculum. We, therefore,
recommend that science and mathematics should be taught on a compulsory basis to all
pupils as a part of general education during the first ten years of schooling. In addition,
there should be a provision of real courses in these subjects at the secondary stage, for
students of more than average ability”.
UNESCO’s International Commission recommend as under:
“Science and technology must become essential components in any educational
enterprise; they must be incorporated into all educational activity intended for children,
young people and adults, in order to help the individual to control social energies as well as
natural and production ones – thereby achieving mastery over himself, his choices and
actions – and, finally, they must help man to acquire a Scientific turn of mind so that he
becomes able to promote science without being enslaved by it”.
With regard to the nature of science and its relation with humanities, this Commission
hoped that “The natural sciences will one day incorporate the science of man, just as the
science of man will incorporate the natural sciences; there will be a single science”.
In the past, science had to struggle long and hard for its rightful place in the school
curriculum. There was a time when science was considered an inferior subject to study and
the meritorious students were supposed to study classics and mathematical subjects. New
ideas or inventions in science were not immediately accepted in the society and were looked
upon with suspicion. Any new idea that went against the prevailing beliefs and codes of the
time was condemned.
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Science is no longer confined to a few seriously devoted persons. It satisfies the
usual needs for its inclusion as a subject in the curriculum such as intellectual, cultural,
moral, aesthetic, utilization and vocational values.
According to National Curriculum Framework 2005, people today are faced with an
increasingly fast-changing world where most important skills are flexibility, innovation
and creativity. Good Science education is true to the child and these imperatives have to be
kept in mind in shaping science education.
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The simple observation leads to the following basic criteria of validity of a
science curriculum.
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Cognitive validity requires that the content, process, language and pedagogic
practices of the curriculum are age appropriate and within the cognitive reach
of the child.
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Content validity requires that the curriculum must convey significant and correct
scientific information. Simplification of content is necessary for adapting
curriculum to the cognitive level of the learners.
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Process validity requires that the curriculum should engage the learner in
generating and validating scientific knowledge and nurturing the natural
curiosity and creativity.
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Historical validity requires that the science curriculum be informed as to how
the concepts of science over time evolved.
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Environmental validity requires that the science curriculum be placed with
learner’s environment, local and global, enabling them to appreciate the issues
at the interface of science, technology and society.
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Ethical validity requires that the curriculum promote the values of honesty,
objectivity, cooperation and freedom from fear and prejudice and inculcate in
the learner a concern for life and precaution of environment.