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Linking Young Minds Together
   Volume 6 | Issue 39 | September 30, 2012 |


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Conference

Science Education among High School Students

Fardin Akbar Hyderi


Discussing the different issues on the decline in Science education at secondary levels.
Photo: Amran Hossain

"It has been seen that with every century the world is being developed for a better place for us to live in and the knowledge of science has had a big role to play in it. It is very important that our nation builders are well acquainted with science education. A scientific mind is yet a logical mind,” said Mahfuz Anam, the Editor and Publisher of the Daily Star. On September 22, 2012, a roundtable conference was held at the Daily Star office by the Bangladesh Freedom Foundation, on the concern of declining in interests of high school students for studying science. Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, who was the moderator of the entire conference, Dr Aminul Islam, Dr S M Mahbubul Haque, Ali Azgar, Mahfuz Anam and other great minds of today's nation were also present to claim all the different reasons why the declining is so, and came up with solutions on how to tackle this matter.

The Bangladesh Freedom Foundation took surveys from students of different schools and colleges to come up with reasons for this dilemma. The results which they received to calculate the percentage decrease in science education among today's youth compared to students in their secondary education in the 90's, were shockingly big. It has been calculated in the survey that only 17.9 percent out of all SSC students are interested in science. When asked what the reasons for not taking science were, the students replied that most of their science books are too big and voluminous to study or memorise. They also claimed that it is a lot harder to maintain good grades in science during examinations compared to other subjects. The Bangladesh Freedom Foundation noticed that nowadays, schools show a lack of interest to host science fairs, resulting in students not being enthusiastic enough to study science. They also realised that students who actually do so are not allowed to use science laboratories to perform experiments at all times except once or twice a week which also diminishes their interest to take science as their majors. The Bangladesh Freedom Foundation came up with different solutions on this agenda which they shared in the conference. To solve the problems that the students face while studying the common science books in our country, they created their own multiple versions of books with interactive pictures of experiments and methods along with easily understandable texts that the student could learn science from. With the help of many brilliant minds, the foundation is still on their way to create more science books which are not too voluminous and which will help the students learn the basic concepts of science and not just memorise aimlessly. At the end of the conference, Mahfuz Anam decided to cooperate on all terms regarding any kind of promotion for inspiring young minds to study science. He made everyone in the conference aware of the 'Science' page in the Daily Star newspaper, which can give the students a wide range of knowledge about new discoveries and theories and he asked all the brilliant minds who were present in the room to help him print more scientific articles that students can read and learn from.


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