Island
editorial.
Sheep and goats’
September 6, 2015, 12:00 pm
People sans basic science and maths skills tend to make bad
decisions and run the risk of being ‘bamboozled’, BBC has reported, quoting
Head of the British Science Association Prof. Dame Athene Donald. She is of the
view that teaching students maths up to 18 years will help produce a wiser
population.
Prof. Donald laments that students in the UK are forced to make
subject choices too early in life––at the age of 14––and that practice effectively divides the nations
into ‘sheep and goats, science and arts people’. The study by Prof.
Donald et al is focused on Britain, but its findings, we believe, are of
universal applicability. In this country, the sheep are separated from the
goats when students sit the GCE O/L examination. Those who perform extremely
well follow science subjects and others opt for streams such as arts and
commerce.
One may wonder whether successive governments here have
purposely created a situation where many students fail maths and science at the
GCE O/L examination. When people lose interest
in those two subjects very early in life and fail to make good decisions,
politicians can hornswoggle them easily. The Education Ministry revealed last
year that 52.14 percent of GCE O/L school candidates had failed the English
language, 42.77 percent of them mathematics and 32.47 percent of them Science
and Technology.
The UNP has, in its August 17 election manifesto, promised one
million jobs within the next five years and the UPFA one and a half million
jobs. Now that they have come together to form a joint government, they have to
implement both these pledges; they will have to create 2.5 million jobs by
2020! Is it because of the high failure rate in maths and science at the GCE
O/L examination that electors fall hook, line and sinker for such promises?
About 90 members of the last Parliament had failed GCE O/L and
145, GCE A/L. This may explain, going by the British Science Association
research findings, why legislators make bad laws and decisions and the country
is in such a mess.
Prof. Donald has said: "We may be mocked if our knowledge of
Shakespeare or Austen isn’t perfect, but it is still OK to say: ‘I could never
do maths at school.’ One, no doubt, has to learn maths to be able to improve
one’s analytical skills and make intelligent decisions, but the fact remains
that reading Shakespeare and other literary greats helps boost one’s brain
power according to scientists. Reading Tolstoy, Conrad et al is sure to give a
rocket boost to one’s brain!
A University of Liverpool research team, in 2013, demonstrated,
using brain scans, that challenging literature such as the works of Shakespeare
and Eliot ‘shifts mental pathways and prompts new thoughts in readers’.
Besides, a research carried out by Emory University in the US has proved that
reading novels boosts memory. According to a 2009 study by University of Sussex
six minutes of reading can help reduce stress by 68% and prepare the mind and
the body for a good night’s sleep.
One cannot but agree that there is a pressing need for
promoting science and maths, but the importance of developing liberal arts
education cannot be overemphasised. The American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) report (2013), titled, The Heart of the
Matter, has recommended a well-rounded education where science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) are coupled with the humanities and social
sciences and stressed the fact that ‘all disciplines are essential for the
inventiveness, competitiveness, security, and personal fulfillment’ of the
public. Commenting on the AAAS
recommendations, we argued in an editorial comment, A gem-studded report, on
June 25, 2013 that what was needed was not the promotion of STEM at the expense
of liberal arts but an education system that facilitated the cross-pollination of
disciplines for the benefit of students who needed to be equipped to face
multifarious challenges in life.
One has no difficulty in agreeing that maths and science help make
good decisions, but one has a question which, perhaps, not even the veteran
British Science Association researchers may be able to answer. Why do the
students of Science Faculties at Sri Lankan universities, especially, in
Colombo, Jayewardenepura, Kelaniya and Matara cannot make wise decisions in
tackling seemingly simple problems without resorting to mindless violence?
These undergrads also allow sinister, external political forces to ‘bamboozle’
them in spite of their superior knowledge of maths and science. They are no
better than their counterparts in arts faculties characterised by frequent
clashes, bloodshed besides savage ragging. Why oh why?
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