SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

1948
  • Assistance to science teachers
  • Publication of Suggestions for Science Teachers in Devastated Countries

1950
Etablishment of the Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science

1957
The launching of Sputnik I resulted in Western countries in a dramatic increase in funding for science programmes, and a concentration on education in the basic sciences

1963
Regional pilot projects for basic sciences at secondary level

  • Physics, Latin America, 1963
  • Chemistry, Asia, 1965
  • Biology, Africa, 1967
  • Mathematics, Arab States, 1969

1968
Introduction by UNESCO of the Integrated Science Teaching Programme

UNESCO is unique as a specialized agency of the United Nations in that it has competence and responsibility in both science and education linked to a special concern for developing countries. In promoting science and technology education, UNESCO has constantly harmonized intellectual cooperation and operational action, ensuring that each one reinforces the other.


THE EARLY YEARS: RECONSTRUCTION AND POPULARIZATION

The early years were dominated by the needs of post-war reconstruction and the importance placed on the popularization and social impact of science.

Not being an operating agency like UNRRA, which was in charge of a global reconstruction programme, the tasks of UNESCO in school and university science education in the late 1940s were primarily to identify needs in the war-devastated countries and to publish pamphlets (1) and materials that would aid teachers in various ways, including by describing temporary ways of alleviating the shortage of teaching equipment, especially simple scientific apparatus, until new equipment could be manufactured. (2)

From the outset, efforts were also directed to non-formal education with the aim of enabling the general public to understand the practical applications of science to modern life. Travelling scientific exhibitions (3) were approved by UNESCO’s first General Conference and monographs were published on various aspects of popularization such as Food and People and Energy in the Service of Man. The quarterly review Impact of Science on Society (4) was initiated in 1950 to discuss the effects of scientific developments on modern society. Since 1950, UNESCO annually awards the Kalinga prize (5) to further the popularization of science, encourages science clubs, science camps, science fairs and other out-of-school scientific activities (6) and supports the work of science writers and journalists.(7)

1960s: EDUCATION IN THE BASIC SCIENCES AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

In the late 1950s and during the 1960s, both an emphasis on the peaceful uses of atomic energy, which was the theme of a United Nations Conference in Geneva in 1955, and the launching of Sputnik I stimulated efforts to modernize science curricula in the United States and some European countries, involving leading scientists. Collaboration between UNESCO and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) led to the establishment, in 1961, of an Inter-Union Commission on Science Teaching (CIES), a mechanism which served to co-ordinate the educational activities of the various scientific unions. In the same year, UNESCO established a Division of Science Teaching, staffed by personnel who had been leaders in curriculum reform in their countries, not only for the purpose of giving greater visibility to UNESCO’s existing activities in science education at all levels, but also and especially, of giving increased attention to education in the basic sciences at the secondary level. Science education had become an important area of co-operation with the newly-independent and developing countries, many of which established their own agencies for curriculum development, for example, the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Sciences and Technology in Thailand. The first UNESCO regional pilot projects helped incorporate modern approaches, methods and materials within science education programmes (biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics).

1970s AND 1980s: INTEGRATED SCIENCE TEACHING
AND INTRODUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY IN GENERAL EDUCATION
By the late 1960s, it was clear that major changes were taking place in the international contexts of science and technology education. Concerns about national development were strong and it was recognized that it was urgent to relate education to the development of society. In 1971, ECOSOC launched the World Plan of Action for the Application of Science and Technology to Development. (8) UNESCO’s response to these contextual changes was twofold: first came the promotion of integrated science teaching and, soon after, support for technology as a component of general education. In both areas, UNESCO exercised worldwide leadership and has played a pioneering role. (9) It has encouraged pooling of innovative activities and the organization of high-level international meetings; through its publications, UNESCO has helped Member States to evaluate their innovations in order to enhance and broaden their efforts, particularly through the creation of networks. It has also sought to transfer these new approaches to teacher-training, as well as in the development of operational projects.

The Integrated Science Teaching Programme was launched in 1968; it comprised publications, workshops, advisory services and pilot experiments in Member States. A series of international conferences in Bulgaria (1968), United States (1973) and The Netherlands (1978) respectively attempted to clarify the concept, to consider how best to train teachers of integrated sciences, and to review integrated science teaching worldwide. By 1990, six volumes of New trends in Integrated Science Teaching had been published, together with regional contributions on the same theme.

A major impetus towards the re-evaluation of the place of technology in general education was the publication in 1972 of Learning to Be, (10) which argues for a broadening of everyone’s basic general education to incorporate technological knowledge so that we might better control ‘everything man does to modify his world’ and for an initiation to the world of work.

From the beginning of the 1980s, emphasis was placed on the application of science and technology education to the needs of daily life and the development of society. In this context, UNESCO convened an International Congress on Science and Technology Education and National Development in 1981. New pilot projects involving the co-operation of several institutions in different Member States, were initiated;(11) consultative meetings between national working groups were held and projects were extended to other geographical areas with additional themes, including the teaching of science and technology in an interdisciplinary perspective. A Science and Technology Education Document Series was inaugurated in 1981, forty-eight publications haing been issued by 1995. An International Network for Information in Science and Technology Education (INISTE) was established in 1985. (12) A series of volumes on Innovations in Science and Technology Education was launched in 1986. Volume V (1994) was devoted entirely to technology education. (13)

Jaime Torres Bodet
(Mexico)
Director-General of UNESCO from 1948 to 1952
What we call the World centre of scientific liaison is not just for the benefit of the few professionals. It is an effort to make scientific knowledge more accessible to everyone. We are encouraging the popularization of science.

The UNESCO Courier, August 1949

Albert V. Baez
(United States)
Director of the Division of Science Teaching, UNESCO, from 1961 to 1967
There are many different categories of people who are in a position to make an effective contribution towards science education improvement. One group, including scientists, educators and individual classroom teachers, generates the innovative ideas. Another group, the designers, hopefully including some members of the first group plus specialists in the use of media, develops materials and programmes from these ideas. Finally, there is the small but influential group of people with the power to make decisions about funding and later to implement such activities by, for example, introducing them into the school systems. Without their support, the work of the innovators would never be implemented on a large scale.

Innovation in Science Education Worldwide, UNESCO, 1976

Bogdan Suchodolski
(Poland)
Philosopher, educator, historian
Education through science [...] should arouse curiosity and wonder, stimulate interest in the various problems and projects.

‘Science forms the Personality’. Document prepared for the International Commission on the Development of Education, 1971

New UNESCO source book for science teaching A BESTSELLER FROM 1948 ONWARDS
The UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching

This book, which became a UNESCO bestseller has an interesting history that goes back to the years immediately after the Second World War. UNESCO had produced a pamphlet entitled Suggestions for Science Teachers in Devastated Countries, which also turned out to be very successful in other regions where there had been little or no equipment for science teaching. In 1956, the above volume was considerably expanded with suggestions for making simple equipment and for carrying out experiments using locally available materials. It thus became in 1956 the first edition of the UNESCO Source-Book for Science Teaching which, periodically revised, and updated, had been translated into thirty languages, reprinted twenty-four times and by 1973 had sold over 750,000 copies. The New UNESCO Source-Book for Science Teaching was published in 1973, translated into many languages and very favourably accepted worldwide.

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FOOTNOTES:

(1) Unesco has published a second edition of the booklet, Suggestions for Science Teachers in Devastated Countries for sale in all countries. The first edition was distributed free by UNESCO to schools in devastated areas. Prepared by J.P. Stephenson, science master at City of London School, this 88-page, fully illustrated booklet shows how teachers lacking elementary scientific equipment can make apparatus from simple, everyday materials and at little cost.’
(The UNESCO Courier, April 1949)

(2) War Devastated Science Laboratories, UNESCO, 1949. The Construction of Laboratory Apparatus for Schools, UNESCO, 1954-1955, 2 vol.

(3) Such as: Our Senses and the Knowledge of the World, The Atom, Men against the Desert.

(4) Impact was published from 1950 until 1992.

(5) Of £1,000 from a fund established by an Indian industrialist, Mr B. Patnaik.

(6) Handbook for Science Clubs, Mrs K. Sen Gupta, UNESCO, 1953, UNESCO Source Book for Out-of-School Science and Technology Education, Paris, UNESCO, 1986.

(7) The Popularization of Science through Books for Children, Annabel William-Ellis, UNESCO, 1949. Pamphlet Nuclear Energy and its Uses in Peace, UNESCO, 1955.

(8) UNESCO contributed with a chapter on Science and Technology Education.

(9) In 1973, to ensure success in making science and technology an integral part of general education, the responsibility for these programmes was transferred from the Science into the Education Sector.

(10) The report of the International Commission on the Development of Education.

(11) Including ones on science and technology in rural areas (three countries in Africa), science and technology and productive work (three countries in the Arab States); technology in general education (four countries in Asia); new methods for the pre-service and in-service training of personnel (four countries in Latin America, one in the Caribbean, one in Europe).

(12) Including some 260 institutions in 147 countries, out of which 27 non- governmental organizations.

(13) Summary of other key UNESCO publications on Science and Technology Education: