Editorial-28 January 2003

A recurring theme in reports dealing with the recruitment of the next generation of scientists is the decline of interest in mathematics and the sciences in the school population. The two overarching concerns are defining the reasons and determining how to reverse the decline. In his recent editorial in Science Thomas Cech, 1989 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), highlighted the problem from his viewpoint as "Rebalancing Teaching and Research" and emphasises, "Everything has changed in the research laboratory, but it is likely that far less has changed in the classroom down the hall. The same detachment of professor from student that frustrated university education 25 years ago is just as pervasive today." Cech, as others before him, laments, "For this shortcoming we are paying a huge price: a decreasing percentage, here in the United States, of students who wish to pursue research careers; school districts that struggle to find qualified K-12 science teachers; and a public that has only a hazy understanding of the research advances that are sweeping through our society."

In reviewing how the Institute could best utilize its resources to make a useful contribution to address the crisis HHMI's put money where its President's concerns are. The Institute announced at the end of August last year a competition to find 20 "outstanding teacher-scholars". Now each of the winners has been awarded US$1 million for the next four years "to develop new modes of science teaching." In addition there is an increasing emphasis, though the resources are relatively small, by the US National Science Foundation as well as a number of individual US research universities to foster mentored undergraduate research similar to honours degrees awarded by Australian universities.

The waning interest of Australian Secondary Students in the enabling sciences (provided by John O'Connor, University of Newcastle).

The approaches that will be developed by HHMI's 20 scholar-teachers are to be disseminated broadly, for example through Website- and/or DVD-based resources. Perhaps Australia's Minister for Education, Science and Training will encourage those in his charge to monitor the progress of HHMI's initiative and determine the relevance to the Australian scene. It is clear that Cech embraces the proposition that to produce "qualified K-12 science teachers" requires good math and science departments and such departments are the result of a nexus of good teaching and good research.

Which brings us to the matter of what defines a science department of high quality, the sort from which a scholar-teacher worth a US$1 million investment can be drawn. The development of a high quality scientific department takes many years, in general, because only scientists of high quality are able to put together a department of high quality. When a prominent scientist leaves a university department, for example to move overseas double damage is caused, because mediocrity is self-perpetuating. In the academic world of Western research universities, the quality of the academic faculty whether it be in the humanities, social sciences, hard sciences, medicine, or technology and engineering, is determined primarily in scientific achievements. This measure is closely related to the quality of teaching. Primarily it is the quality of the subject matter taught and the intellectual power the lecturer presents to students. And as Cech emphasises, what needs to be fostered is developing a productive amalgam between discovery and the student. The quality of presentation is certainly of great importance but it is secondary to the quality of the subject matter and the thought processes the lecturer presents. Scientific research is an indispensable and inseparable part of the best teaching. A teacher who is not engaged in research has a reduced incentive to keep abreast of the rapid developments of the science or technology in his field. And one of the essentials is interacting with ones peers. If that contact with scientific reality and progress is severed, a department decays; the quality of its research and teaching will become increasingly substandard.

To date there is little indication that the Federal Government understands, let alone accepts, the necessity for rebuilding the infrastructure of our research universities so that revitalised, they would provide the means and the will to produce a next generation of outstanding Australian scientists, well qualified and enthusiastic science and maths teachers for K-12 students and as a result, a public that has an informed understanding "of the research advances that are sweeping through our society." And will demand its constructively critical support.

Today there is great emphasis on the terror poised beyond our borders, little on the decay gnawing at our quality of life through neglect of our knowledge infrastructure. That neglect will cost our children, and theirs in turn, dearly.