Crisis of Biology Education in Japan
キーワード:
biology education,
curriculum framework and guidelines,
primary education,
Japanese science education,
secondary education
2004 年 2 巻 p. 75-80
詳細
2004 年 2 巻 p. 75-80
As a result of the latest reform of the national curriculum framework, the Course of Study (CS), by the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT), some problems have occurred in biology education at the primary and secondary school levels. The ma jor problems are as follows: (1) The contents of study have decreased because the time allotted to science classes was reduced. This has resulted in the incomplete bi ology education at the compulsory level. (2) In upper secondary schools, students are required to take one of the 2-credit general science subjects, and to select at least one subject among the individual 3-credit science subjects. Therefore, many stu dents possibly do not study enough biological topics to understand the current issues related to life and environmental sciences. (3) Some very important concepts in biological science such as evolution and the continuity of life have lacked from the contents of study not only at the compulsory level, but also in ordinary biology course in upper secondary schools. Molecular biology has also been missing from ordinary biology course in upper secondary schools. (4) Some important concepts related to biology education in other areas of science education such as ions, energy, the characteristics of light, atoms and molecules, etc., have been transferred from the lower secondary school level to the upper secondary school level. Thus, these top ics have to be covered in biology education in upper secondary school. (5) The process of textbook “authorization,” which is the screening of textbooks for primary and secondary schools carried out by the officers of MEXT, makes the issues more serious. The contents of each textbook are checked severely to see if they deviate from the CS and its guidelines. As a result, the explanations of some important bi ology concepts and of the concepts in other science areas which might be required for understanding biological phenomena were requested to be deleted from biology textbooks. This results in restricting biology education and makes it more difficult.
