Teaching for scientific literacy: Bangladeshi teachers’ perspectives, practices and challenges

During the 1980s, Fensham’s (1985) call for a Science for All was recognised worldwide as a commitment to provide science to all students, not just to the elite. Subsequently, this slogan has been modified to one of Scientific literacy (Law, Fensham, Li, & Wei, 2000), which is advocated worldwide as a goal of school science education as for example in the USA (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993), in the UK (Millar & Osborne, 1998), or in Australia (Goodrum, Hackling, & Rennie, 2001). In line with this global trend, junior secondary science education in Bangladesh aims to provide a good foundation in science for all students to enable them to use their science learning in everyday life (National Curriculum and Textbook Board [NCTB], 1995). This aim is consistent with the call for scientific literacy, which argues for engaging students with science in everyday life (Tytler, Osborne, Williams, Tytler, & Clark, 2008).

In the Bangladesh Junior Secondary Curriculum Report, it has been agreed that “in these days, the importance of acquiring scientific knowledge and skills is unavoidable for improving the quality of lives, solving everyday problems and making decisions” (NCTB, 1995, p. 353). In order to provide such knowledge and skills, the General Science course at the junior secondary level is compulsory for all students, even though almost 75% students choose the non-science groups after this level (Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics [BANBEIS], 2006). The junior secondary General Science curriculum therefore should provide a good foundation in science for all students including those who will take further studies in science. The emphasis in the curriculum needs to cater for both of these groups as the former group needs a solid foundation in science in preparation for being effective citizens, while in addition to this the latter group needs a good foundation to prepare them for further study in science. This emphasis, however, does not always remain in balance in the curriculum, with teachers often focussing more on the good foundation for the future science study group (Sarkar, 2009).

This paper examines how scientific literacy is considered in junior secondary science classes in Bangladesh. In order to do this, four research questions have been framed:

What are the teachers’ perspectives of scientific literacy?
How are teachers’ perspectives of scientific literacy translated into classroom teaching?
What values teachers consider in relation with scientific literacy and how are they considered?
What issues do teachers perceive as challenging in their teaching for scientific literacy