A rural community’s definition of relevant science education, and the processes by which the definition was developed, are important statements about human rights, democracy and social justice.
The right to survive, the right to information, the right to services, the right to meaningful education need to be considered together. These rights are poorly realised in rural communities compared with urban communities. Rural communities are isolated from the political, economic and global life of the nation. Consequently, the nation risks losing contact with half of itself. By enlisting the energy of community into self-development and relevant education, rural communities can offer models for preserving and developing not only rural life, but also the wider community.
What is the contribution of the current science curriculum to life in rural communities? In a meeting with a community in remote KwaZulu-Natal, asking “What is relevant science education?” gave me an uneasy sense of absurdity. To start with, I had to believe that this was a relevant question. Not surprisingly, the initial response, “We are hungry”, seemed an oblique answer at the time. The induna said: “When children leave school, they stay in the valley but they have no skills”. All in the community agreed: school science had little to offer. Even in “developed” countries 50% of high-school students find science classes irrelevant and boring, graduates remember almost nothing of science concepts and, even by lenient standards, research shows at least 70% of citizens in developed countries are scientifically illiterate.
A primary-school principal agreed with the community’s opinion that the curriculum was obsolete: “Tell (former minister of education Kadar) Asmal we don’t need text books, we need a tractor!” Community members complained that students were not learning anything that could contribute to generating income nor were those few who had matriculated finding jobs. Students expressed concern that their education was not taking them anywhere and they lacked information about how to change this. Many students dropped out and of those who stayed, only 15% matriculated.
Often as teachers we focus on how to improve our teaching without considering if what we are teaching is of any intrinsic use.
When I asked an NGO leader; “What does the school think about these problems of cultural preservation, skills development, health and farming priorities that everyone has mentioned?”, she replied: “The school does not think.”
Finding answers to relevant science education takes time – thinking, experimenting and combined creativity. We spent three years discussing and experimenting with meanings of relevant science education through participation. This process included researchers, community researchers, teachers, students, parents, elders, NGO members and farmers.
We worked on visions, plans, needs, concerns and explored various contexts: historical, social and economic. Students produced data on community, science and world view through community-based projects in conjunction with parents and farmers. The community’s main concerns were poverty and sickness. A farming NGO and funder provided for new farming initiatives and training. This was then linked to the curriculum and achievements were demonstrated in a community science festival.
Farmers had learned about planning, measuring, monitoring, egg production and money management; the researchers had learned about the community, worldview, science and research; community members gained hope and insights into their own lives and the lives of the children.
Science education in rural communities has come to mean education that is interconnected, practical and participatory.
Relevance needs to address poverty. Projects that are community-centred, especially if they are linked to experienced development NGOs, can achieve relevance in context, purpose, structure, process and content.
Relevant contexts are community, farming and ubuntu;
Relevant purposes include food security, health care, employability and entrepreneurship, cultural appreciation, information access and evaluation;
Relevant structures are community-centred projects and culturally embedded learning. Rural community already is a rich resource of place-based science education. Community-centred learning allows students and teachers flexibility and encourages authentic learning of science more than the conventional classroom syllabi.
We need to find bridges between school and community as well as between broader society and rural life. Students need to learn out of school and the wider community needs to move into school. Community development and individual development are inextricable. This moves standard concepts of learner-centred education to community-centred education.
Relevant processes include integration of dance, drama, story, song and adult participation, as well as integration across subjects. An eclectic and participative approach challenges the curriculum;
Relevant content is wide: farming, HIV/Aids, technology, computers, electricity and nutrition.
It is clear that these different dimensions of relevance are connected.
Relevant science education is wider than cognition. It has many dimensions that cannot easily be disentangled. Distinctions between science, non-science, science education, education, learning and development are blurred.
Science education needs to contribute directly to community well-being. This is not a short-term view of expedient skills for survival in a post-apartheid rural anomie: it is a deep goal that stretches back, and forwards in time.
Moyra Keane works as an academic advisor in the Science Teaching and Learning Centre, Faculty of Science, Wits University