Uproar Over New Plan For Science
The Age
Wednesday May 26, 1993
Australia's scientists are protesting against the content of the proposed national science curriculum statements and profiles for the nation's schools.
Already, the teachers of mathematics, fine arts and physical education have pilloried the curriculums in their fields as academically flawed or unworkable.
Now the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and the Australian Institute of Physics are protesting about the science curriculum, which covers chemistry, physics, biology and geology.
The two institutes are writing jointly to the federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Mr Beazley, expressing ``extreme concern" about the content.
Their criticisms are captured in a statement issued yesterday by the academy: ``The science profile is particularly deficient at its levels seven and eight (which forms the basis of the years 11 and 12 syllabus). The main problems we see are: ``A fundamental error in trying to base science education on a contentious sociology of science. This involves downgrading scientific knowledge and skills and replacing the disciplines of science with `issues' derived from social and political agendas, such as supposed gender and ethnic bias.
``At levels seven and eight the teaching of science appears to be replaced by discussion of issues of supposed appeal to students. Many of these issues are difficult policy questions for which good documentation is unavailable at any level.
The academy's president, Professor David Craig, said the academy supported a national approach to the teaching of science and technology, and was generally satisfied with the profiles prepared for primary schools.
``However, the academy is firmly of the view that all senior high school students should be taught more of the body of scientific knowledge" As an example of the kind of ethnic bias that is seen to undermine that objective, Dr Rod Crewther, the deputy head of physics and mathematics at Adelaide University, said there was an insistence in the curriculum that students be taught the contribution to science of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
This he derided as the equivalent of insisting that a French teacher include the contribution of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders to the development of the French language.
He also quoted from a passage in the curriculum that invited students to consider the work of alchemists alongside that of Einstein and Rutherford.
``This document is totally hostile to science," he said.
The academy urges Australia's education ministers to refer the statement and profiles to a group representing educators and practising scientists for reconsideration, and not adopt it, as scheduled, at a meeting on 1 and 2 July.
The ministers will meet on that occasion as the Australian Education Council, and the curriculum materials have been prepared under the aegis of the council's curriculum and assessment committee.
© 1993 The Age