Elementary Science in Secondary Schools

Abstract

IN a consideration of the School Certificate Examination, the Panel of Investigators appointed by the Secondary School Examinations Council reported in 1932 that so far as science is concerned, the examination was unsatisfactory. There are fifteen possible ways that a candidate for School Certificate may be examined in science, no examining body having less than five possibilities. By taking advantage of the possibilities offered, a candidate may under some examining bodies offer for a science pass in School Certificate, either heat, light and sound, or magnetism and electricity, without any other science subject. While this is possible in only three out of the eight examining bodies, in all cases a candidate need only offer one science, usually chemistry, physics or botany, in order to pass in science. The concentration thus demanded on a single science subject in the school examination is not regarded as in the best interests of the pupil or of science, in that it is impossible to achieve any satisfactory training in scientific method by a consideration of any one single science, and that also such a procedure does not give to the pupil a sufficiently comprehensive idea of what is connoted by the term ‘science’.