Science Education at the Secondary Level in Greater Kushtia District -Problems and Prospect

Abstract

The research is conducted on greater Kushtia district which, at present, is formed of Kushtia, Chuadanga, and Meherpur districts with a view to evaluating the overall condition of science education at the secondary level. 54 science teaching secondary schools are randomly selected as sampling among the 579 secondary schools along with junior secondary schools of which 269 introduced science. About fifty percent selected schools are situated in the rural areas and the rest fifty percent are situated in upazilla and district headquarters. To facilitate the research studies four sets of questionnaires were introduced to the respondents to collect related information and statistics. The respondents are 54 headmasters, 68 science teachers and 112 science students among whom are 66 best performing boy science students and 46 best performing girl science students and their respective guardians. Findings of the research showed that the enrolment of science stream students both at the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) levels is remarkably decreasing. On the contrary, business studies stream students are notably increasing at both the above levels. Humanities students show no noticeable change at the SSC level; rather we detect a noticeable decrease at the HSC level. The success rates in recent years are increasing remarkably both in the SSC and HSC examinations. Girls' participation in all the three streams is noticeably increasing day by day, but girls' success rates are lagging compared to their boys counterpart during the years from 2001 to 2008 both in the SSC and HSC exams. According to the evaluation of the headmasters regarding the 30 competencies of the science teachers performing their duties and professionalism as provided, science teachers perform fifteen competencies sometimes, five perform often, five perform sometimes and often and the rest five perform sometimes and rare. The teachers seem to be heterogeneous in regard to performing the 30 competencies. Students' entrance to secondary education with weak primary education is the main reason that discourages the students to study science remarked by most of the headmasters. Moreover, lack of laboratory facilities and modem science equipments, unconsciousness of the guardians, absence of extra benefit for the science students in the job market etc. are also the reasons for the declining of the enrolment in science stream. Science teachers were evaluated through the structured as well as open-ended questionnaires. Reliability coefficient of career advancement programmes is found to be 0.63 which is positive and substantial and indicates that the science teachers had advantages of different professional advancement programmes like Radio/TV programmes concerning science, association with debate and discussions on science topics and science hobby clubs, editing science magazines etc. Reliability coefficient of the school environment is found to be 0.80 which is positive and high and shows that the school environment is substantially related to the excellence in science education. Reliability coefficient of interest in profession and competency of science teachers is found to be 0.56 which is positive and moderate and confirms that science teachers' interest in their profession has a direct relationship to the competency of science teachers. Also the reliability coefficient regarding job dissatisfaction of the science teachers is found 0.88 which is rather high and shows that the high job dissatisfaction has a negative relationship with the teachers' competency. Furthermore, the reliability coefficient of home environment and socio-economic status is found to be 0.21, which is poor and non-significant and confirms that home environment as well as socio-economic status has no correlation to the competency of science teachers. 22% science teachers claimed that they apply questioning techniques in the classroom and their applications are good as ranked by themselves. Due to short class time, they cannot use teaching aids. 53% of the selected science teachers laid emphasis on real aids. More than one third of the selected science teachers are unable to enter into the class with a lesson plan or sufficient preparations due to heavy load of daily classes. 74% science teachers marked on 'suitable' regarding the science subjects like physics, chemistry, higher mathematics and biology etc. introduced from 1995 and effective for the students of class IX and X. According to the respondent science students' information, 59% students responded that the use of teaching aids/equipments were very rare a year. Majority of the students responded that deciding the group in class IX is influenced by the school teachers. The on-going science subjects introduced in 1995 by National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) impact the students with phobia and make them reluctant to opt science. The science subjects affected by phobia are chemistry, physics, higher mathematics and biology of which the first is comparatively hard and the last is comparatively easy. Economic insolvency of parents initially hinders the students from studying science in view of the cost of higher education. About one third students follow their friends and comply with their requests for not studying science. About two third science students responded that the present textbooks introduced in 1995 are not unsuitable, rather they are suitable and well to read although hard. 40% of the respondent science students disagreed that it is possible to understand the present science contents without having private tuition. Findings also show that girl science students come from comparatively educated families of the society and their guardians are economically substantial compared to their boys' counterpart. Finally, it is concluded on the basis of the information as well as the opinions expressed by the respondents that the present science contents are hard which discourages the students to study science. Moreover, students need to undergo extra labor and to have private tuition to do well in the exam from science stream, unfortunately is not possible for most of the rural guardians to bear extra economic burden for the private tuition of their wards and it also discourages the students to study science. As a result, the enrolment of science stream students is lessening day by day both at the SSC and HSC levels. The study has been completed with some policy implications and recommendations.