The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recently published a new report with seemingly simple recommendations to improve the state of science education in the US, reports ScienceInsider's Jeffrey Mervis. But educators say the recommendations are deceptively simple, and will actually be challenging to implement. PCAST's report says improving undergraduate education in STEM fields is a matter of making introductory courses more interesting and more active, and helping students find jobs in science and engineering, among other suggestions, Mervis says. However, the implementation of these recommendations will require changes in academic culture, according to experts.
"Education reformers say one of their biggest hurdles is an academic culture that prizes research over teaching and that traditionally has been geared more toward weeding out rather than attracting students into majoring in STEM fields," Mervis says. "In addition, the current system of US higher education, including community colleges and 4-year institutions as well as those offering graduate degrees in STEM fields, is so vast that it is inherently resistant to change."
The authors of the report say that their recommendations, if implemented, could result in a million additional students graduating with STEM degrees. In accordance with this report, the Obama administration has proposed spending $60 million on research into the best approaches to improve science and math education in the US, Mervis adds.
Beyond issues of academic
Beyond issues of academic culture, there is a much broader social problem. A substantial fraction of the adult american population has sent a clear political message that they are not interested in the fruits of scientific discovery any time that they conflict with some religious, economic or other social agenda. The government cannot 'force' people to believe in the value of education. Many people may say that they support better education, but when at the same time they deny many of the important conclusions at least of science, the message being sent to children is that education is of secondary importance. There is indeed no easy solution to this problem. I find it hard to understand why the asian countries have so much less problem with these issues - although some of them have their own problems regarding the social results of universal education.