Analysis: Critics fear R&D largesse hurts teaching

Worldwide, there is a worrying shortage of scientists but Canada has made huge strides in tackling the problem. The THES reports

Science towers over Canada's enriched research landscape. But its dominance over such things as early science education will not ensure enough home-grown researchers, according to some critics.

University of Toronto astronomer John Percy thinks the government's initiatives to pump money into university-based science research is good news but, as a teacher trainer, he believes the system will not attract students into the denuded area of science education.

Science's favoured status is reflected in the research pots. Some 89 per cent of federal research money goes to the science and engineering and health research councils. Eighty per cent of the eventual 2000 Canada Research Chairs will be in the sciences. As for the research infrastructure bonanza of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, there is little room for anything else resembling science.

Dr Percy said new attractive positions in science research had led students away from science teaching. "Would you become a science teacher if you can get into medicine?" he asked.

Bonnie Schmidt, president of Let's Talk Science, a Canadian charitable foundation that tries to motivate and empower young people through science education, sees the new federal money, while welcome, is a short-term fix.

She and Dr Percy agreed that training teachers who could keep up with changing sciences and inspire young people was an essential part of the answer.

"I don't think a person turns 18 and, suddenly, they have a desire to pursue a science career. If you talk to successful people in science, there was something in their early life that triggered their imagination," Dr Schmidt said.

Philip Fine received an honourable mention for his February 2001 THES article on depleted uranium testing at Memorial University, Newfoundland, in the Canadian Association of University Teachers Award for Excellence in Education Journalism, last month.