Teacher Training in England

Art Hobson	Physics Education in the USA
Brenda M Jennison	Teacher Training in England
Tae Ryu	Future of Physics Education --- The Japanese View
A. Monchablon Provided by Sere Marie-Genevieve	System of Education of France
LUO Xingkai	PHYSICS EDUCATION IN CHINA

PHYSICS EDUCATION IN THE USA

Art Hobson
Professor of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
Email: ahobson@comp.uark.edu, fax 501-575-4580

Contrary to what one might expect in a democratic nation, U.S. physics education is poor at the lower levels and for the broad mass of people, and better at higher levels and for scientific specialists. At the same time, as measured by the number of physics degrees granted, the physics profession has been in decline for the past 20 years and shows little sign of reversing this trend. As will be seen below, these two characteristics--poorer education for the broad mass of people, and a declining physics profession--are causally related.

In this article, I will summarize U.S. physics education at the public school and university levels, discuss several problems in U.S. physics education, and summarize several recent efforts to improve the system.

There is practically no physics in grade school (kindergarten and grades 1-6), and little science education of any kind. Worse yet, many teachers dislike and fear science, and they communicate these attitudes--often unconsciously--to their students. Thus, studies show that most children enter grade school full of enthusiasm and questions about the natural world, but are hostile and bored with science by the time they leave. There is widespread agreement that the solution lies in improving the education of grade school teachers in the areas of science and science teaching. Furthermore, university physicists and Colleges of Education need to take responsibility for doing this. Unfortunately, there has been little progress in this direction.

The situation is not much better in junior high school (grades 7-9). In grade 9, students take one course in "physical science," a course that touches on physics, astronomy, and geology. It is seldom taught by a physicist.

Although many students drop out of their education during senior high school (grades 10-12), most complete grade 12 and graduate with a high school degree. High school students take only 2 or 3 one-year science courses--typically one year of biology, followed by one year of chemistry, and perhaps one more science course. For some students, this last course is a physics course, taken in grade 12. In a recent survey, only 24% of high school graduates had taken a physics course--an increase from the 20% who took physics during the 1980s. The high school physics course is usually rather technical and mathematical, is designed as a foundation for further technical university physics courses, and contains no social, philosophical, or historical topics. There is evidence that this "university preparation" physics course does not actually help students in their later university courses. Most of the teachers of this course are not qualified physics teachers, but are instead qualified in biology or chemistry or perhaps not in any science.

Traditionally, there has been no high school physics course for the great majority of students who will not go to a university, or who will go to a university and major in a subject outside of science. Thus, the great majority of Americans, even those who have had a college education, have never had a single physics course. And, even among the scientists, very few have studied the broader social, philosophical, or historical context of physics. In short, American physics education is limited, and narrow.

Given these problems, it is not surprising that the recent Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) study gave low marks to U.S. public school science education. The TIMSS study was the final part of a large study of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. It is thought to be the largest, most comprehensive, and most rigorous international study of schools and student achievement ever conducted. Specific results of the study include: (1) U.S. 12th-graders performed among the lowest of 21 countries on mathematical and scientific general knowledge; (2) from scoring above the international average in math and science at the 4th-grade level, U.S. students drop to about average by 8th grade, and by 12th grade they outperform only two other countries; (3) when a subset of advanced 12th-grade students from 16 nations were tested in higher-level mathematics and physics, students in 11 countries performed better than U.S. students, and U.S. students did not perform better than a single country. According to U.S. National Science Foundation Director Neal Lane, "These studies suggest that students appear to disengage from learning critical mathematics and science content as they progress through the school system."

Recently, a small but influential movement has attempted to change the ordering of the three major high-school science courses to a more natural sequence that puts physics first, followed in later years by chemistry and then biology. It is thought that physics, as the most basic science, should precede chemistry, which can then build upon the students' knowledge of physics. And chemistry should precede biology because modern biology courses, being based largely on chemistry, can then build upon students' knowledge of chemistry. At the same time, this movement is trying to integrate the teaching of all the sciences, for instance by integrating the social and philosophical aspects of science into all science courses, and using physics principles throughout all science courses. Although these efforts have the support of the National Science Teachers Association and other influential organizations, it is difficult for such national reform efforts to succeed because of America's highly localized and thus fragmented system of public schools (see further discussion of this point below).

The situation at the undergraduate university level (grades 13-16) is similar to that in the earlier grades: Science students take a rather demanding one-year algebra- or calculus-based technical physics course covering all of "classical" physics. This course covers very little "modern" physics (20th century physics), and no social, cultural, or historical context. Although it is a difficult and discouraging course for many non-physicists, physics students often excell in this course. Physics students then take a variety of physics and math courses designed to prepare them for graduate study and, eventually, the PhD or Doctorate Degree. However, only 30% of American physics undergraduates go on to graduate school, and only 40% of these graduate students go on to traditional careers in physics research. Until recently, not much attention was given to the 88% of physics undergraduates who will not obtain a PhD. But in the past few years, a few programs have been established that are directed toward these students. Undergraduate physics programs have been designed for students who will use their physics degrees in non-traditional ways, such as physics teaching, industrial applications, engineering, science journalism, management of science-related businesses, environmental law, and medicine.

One of the biggest deficiencies in university-level physics education has been our failure to prepare sufficient numbers of physicists to teach at either the grade school, high school, or university level. This of course only perpetuates our physics education difficulties.

Let us turn briefly to those university students who are majoring in history, business, education, and other non-scientific subjects. Although 90% of our university students are non-scientists, these students take little or no physics, and in fact they take little science of any kind. Most universities put little effort into teaching such courses, and the courses that are taught are frequently irrelevant to the needs of students and of American society. The problem is that such courses, when they are taught at all, are usually simply less mathematical versions of the standard technical physics courses taken by physicists and engineers, and are entirely lacking in societal or cultural topics such as energy resources, global warming, scientific methodology, and the philosophical impact of modern physics. This neglect of non-scientists perpetuates the problems of the physics profession, because our nation's journalists, politicians, historians, businesspeople, and other leaders are all non-scientists who have grown up with little knowledge of, and probably a distaste for, physics.

The great success story of American physics education comes only at the highest level, in the research-oriented PhD programs that exist at nearly 200 universities. These PhD programs are renowned for their excellence, and produce many of the world's finest research physicists. This success is a consequence of the research dollars and the prestige university-based scientific research receives in America. At most of these 200 universities, hiring and promotions and salary are not based primarily on teaching but are based instead on research success, as measured by papers published and by outside research funds obtained.

According to David Goodstein, physicist and Vice Provost of the California Institute of Technology, "The great American experiment in mass higher education has failed completely in the sciences, where we have a small educated elite and an illiterate general public. Our graduate education in science is the best in the world....However, the rest of our educational system is bad enough to constitute a threat to the ideal of Jeffersonian democracy....95% of the American public is illiterate in science by any rational definition of what we mean by science literacy."

Science education is influenced by several national characteristics and trends. America's emphasis on the political freedom of every state, county, town, and individual, results in a fragmented system with little national guidance. There are few national standards. Local school boards often determine what will be taught, within guidelines set by each of the 50 states. As one important example, the theory of biological evolution is widely ignored in grades 1-12, because of opposition from fundamentalist religious groups who "believe" that evolution threatens their religion, and who exert their power through local school boards. As a result, most Americans, including many biology teachers, believe that humans were created separately rather than evolving from other animals!

The end of the long confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, and federal budget reductions, have made it harder to find traditional physics employment in research and in higher education. Physics employment, university physics enrollments, and physics graduation rates, have all dropped during the past few years.

Contrary to what one might expect in a democratic nation, America takes a "top-down" approach to science education. Beginning shortly after World War II, and stimulated by wartime research and the cold war, universities shifted their focus from undergraduate education toward more financially rewarding research, government grants, and PhD production. Today, university physicists are hired and promoted for their research productivity rather than their teaching ability, with the result that there is a tendency for physics departments in large universities to ignore undergraduates, non-scientists, public school teachers, and public school education. In fact, professors in large research-oriented universities are generally penalized for devoting much attention to students and teaching, because every hour spent on teaching means one less hour spent on research, and promotions and pay raises are given mainly for research, not teaching.

Many educators and social experts have observed that America has two public school systems, one for the rich and one for the poor. Many Americans live in poverty, and many of the poor live in the centers of cities. Inner-city schools thus have problems of poverty, discipline, apathy, crime, violence, drugs, and they have no firm financial support because schools are supported largely by local taxes--taxes that are paid by the people living near the school. This is why, during the past few decades, so many middle-class and upper-class families have been fleeing from the inner cities to surrounding suburbs. This "middle-class flight" is in turn a major cause of inner-city decay. Thus suburban schools have a good tax base, and far fewer problems, than inner-city schools. This stratified social and geographic stucture--decaying inner cities with poor schools, and rich suburbs with good schools--makes social and educational reforms difficult.

The problems of American education have become so obvious that there are now many efforts to correct them. Many physics educators are trying to reform the introductory physics courses taught to scientists and engineers. Educational research has shown that traditional lecturing by the instructor results in surprisingly little real learning by students. One successful approach to this problem is the "peer instruction" or "interactive engagement" technique associated with Eric Mazur and others. By allowing students to think and interact with each other and with the instructor, this teaching method recognizes that students are often the best teachers.

Other studies have shown that students in traditional physics courses learn only how to solve certain standard types of problems, without actually learning the physics concepts that are the main point of those problems and in fact the main point of the course. For example, when asked a simple question such as "when a large truck collides with a small car, which one exerts the greater force on the other?", most students demonstrate that they do not understand Newton's Third Law even though they have worked many complex problems based on Newton's Laws! Thus, David Hestenes, Lillian McDermott, and others, have promoted a "concepts first" approach, in which conceptual understanding is valued above the mere ability to memorize formulas and carry out routine calculations.

A common criticism of American physics education is that it is "a mile wide and only an inch deep." That is, physics courses try to cover every possible physics topic with little regard for which topics are really basic and which are more superficial. Thus, too little time is devoted to basics (such as Newton's Third Law) for students to really understand them. The American Physical Society's "Introductory University Physics Project" has worked to correct this by developing several "model" physics courses in which non-essential topics are removed in order to focus on the fundamentals.

Physics education has also been criticised for concentrating only on "classical" or pre-20th-century physics and devoting little attention to relativity, quantum theory, nuclear physics, and high-energy physics. The Introductory University Physics Project has tried to solve this problem by incorporating significant portions of "modern physics" (a poor choice of words since most of these topics are now a century old!) into its model courses.

These reforms all help to overcome many of the problems of introductory university physics courses for scientists. Unfortunately, they are not yet in wide use in universities. More importantly, there has been little such reform for non-scientists or at the grade-school or high-school level.

Most educators agree that the fundamental problem is the science illiteracy of the general public. For example, the American Assoication for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) states, in an essay entitled "The Need for Scientific Literacy," that "The life-enhancing potential of science and technology cannot be realized unless the public in general comes to understand science, mathematics, and technology and to acquire scientific habits of mind. Without a scintifically literate population, the outlook for a better world is not promising." Science illiteracy has a negative effect on the physics profession by contributing to misunderstanding and mistrust of science in Congress and in the news media, by reducing enrollments in high school and college physics courses, and by contributing to the decline in the number of students majoring in physics in college.

Several fine national organizations have worked long and hard at general public school science education reform: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Physical Society, and the Carnegie Foundation have all been active in this effort. Despite these admirable efforts, the results are not yet apparent in America's bewildering and stratified educational system.

1. W. H. Schmidt, C. C. McKnight, What can we really learn from TIMSS? Science, 4 December 1998, 1830-1831.

2. S. W. Fones, J. R. Wagner, E. R. Caldwell, Promoting attitude adjustments in science for preservice elementary teachers, Journal of College Science Teaching, February 1999, 231-236.

3. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Friends of Fermilab, ARISE: American Renaissance in Science Education, a three-year high school science core curriculum. Available from Fermilab, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, email: Lederman@fnal.gov .

physics text, Forum on Education of the American Physics Society, Summer 1998, 7-10.

8. American Institute of Physics, U.S. 12th-graders perform poorly on international math and science study, AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, Number 35, 27 February 1998. G. Vogel, Northern Europe tops in high school, Science, 27 February 1998, 1297. Also see Refs. 1 and 7.

9. J. Mervis, U.S. tries variations on high school curriculum, Science, 10 July 1998, 161-162. M. G. Bardeen, L. M. Lederman, Coherence in science education, Science, 10 July 1998, 178-179. Also see Ref. 3.

10. R. Watson, The need for more schoolteachers in science and math: how colleges can help, Journal of College Science Teaching, March/April 1999, 293-296; the author is former director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education. Congressman V. J. Ehlers, Science literacy and the U.S. Congress, Journal of College Science Teaching, November 1997, 85-86. Ernest Henley, The teaching of physics, American Journal of Physics, February 1992, 107; the author was then the President of the American Physical Society. K. G. Wilson, Introductory physics for teachers, Physics Today, September 1991, 71-73. F. J. Dyson, To teach or not to teach, American Journal of Physics, June 1991, 491-495; this is Freeman Dyson's acceptance speech for the 1991 Oersted Medal presented by the American Association of Physics Teachers. D. Goodstein, Can science survive constraint on growth? Forum on Education of the APS, Fall 1996, 7.

11. J. A. Moore, Science education reform, Science, 9 October 1998, 240; also see Leon Lederman's response, 241-242.

12. D Goodstein, The sci literacy gap, Journal of Science Education and Technology, Volume 1, Number 3, 1992, 149-155. D. Goodstein, The flight from physics: what's wrong, and how to fix it, American Journal of Physics, March 1999, 182-186; Goodstein is Provost of the California Institute of Technology.

13. R. Moore, Creationism 74 yrs after the "monkey trial," Journal of College Science Teaching, February 1999, 229-230.

14. J. Glanz, Young physicists despair of tenured jobs, Science, 20 February 1998, 1128. D. Goodstein, Can science survive constraint on growth? Forum on Education of the APS, Fall 1996, 7. American Institute of Physics, AIP finds enrollment losses, salary gains, Physics Today, November 1996, 74-75. A. Lawler, Department of Energy labs: is evolution enough? Science, 14 June 1996, 1576-1578. American Institute of Physics, Fewer Bachelor's Degrees in 1994, Physics Today, June 1996, 51. American Institute of Physics, Physics enrollments continue to fall, Physics Today, May 1996, 63.

15. J. Alper, Scientists return to the elementary-school classroom, Science, 6 May 1994, 768-769.

16. Urban schools in crisis, two-thirds of city students fail to meet basic levels on tests, National Science Teachers Association Reports, February/March 1998, 1. S. E. Brekke, Physics classes, career choices, and inner-city schools, The Physics Teacher, November 1997, 512. M. C. Lach, An inner-city education, Scientific American, January 1992, 151.

17. B. Khoury, Revitalization of undergraduate physics: responding to our renvironment, AAPT Announcer, March 1999, 4; Khoury is Executive Officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

18. E. Mazur, Peer Instruction, Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA, 1997. D. E. Meltzer, K. Manivannan, Promoting interactivity in physics lecture classes, The Physics Teacher, February 1996, 72-76. R. R. Hake, Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: a 6000-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses, American Journal of Physics, January 1998, 66-74. D. Hestenes, Who needs physics education research, American Journal of Physics, June 1998, 465-467.

19. E. F. Redish, R N. Steinberg, Teaching physics: figuring out what works, Physics Today, January 1999, 24-30; also see the references in this article.

20. L. A. Coleman, D. F. Holcomb, J. S. Rigden, The Introductory University Physics Project 1987-1995: what has it accomplished? American Journal of Physics, February 1998, 124-137.

21. D. F. Holcomb, Beyond F=ma, American Journal of Physics, June 1996, 690-693; Donald Holcomb's acceptance speech for the 1996 Oersted Medal presented by the American Association of Physics Teachers. 22. F.J. Rutherford and A. Ahlgren, Science for All Americans, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, pages vi, vii.

23. E. Culotta, Curriculum reform: project 2061 offers a benchmark, Science, 22 October 1993, 498-499. Also see Ref. 22.

24. National Research Council, National Science Education Standards, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1996. I. Goodwin, Academy proposes standards to make K-12 science accessible, understandable and relevant to all, Physics Today, April 1996, 49-50. C. Holden, National standards finally ready for public scrutiny, Science, 9 December 1994, 1637.

25. E. Culotta, Curriculum reform: project 2061 offers a benchmark, Science, 22 October 1993, 498-499. J. Kumagai, NSTA's new curriculum integrates science in secondary schools, Physics Today, October 1990, 87-88.

26. D. Leslie-Pelecky, The APS teacher-scientist alliance, Forum on Education of the APS, Spring 1995, 5-6.

27. Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government, In the National Interest: the federal government in the reform of K-12 math and science education, Carnegie Comission, 10 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10003.

Teacher Training in England

Brenda M Jennison, School of Edu., Univ. of Cambridge, UK
E-mail: bmj10@hermes.cam.ac.uk

Teacher training has existed in England for more than a century. Two different traditions grew up which became two major routes into teaching. The B Ed degree (Bachelor of Education) grew out of the training college route which was a a two then three year non graduate entry into teaching. The B Ed is normally a four year degree course which includes elements of higher education in one or more main subjects, pedagogical work and teaching practice. Students enter B Ed courses at the end of their secondary schooling at age 18. The majority of students on these courses aim to teach in a primary school although some are training for secondary school teaching especially in specialist subjects such as physical education and technology. Most students were expected to go

into teaching however as many as 40% of the B Ed graduates use the degree for entry into jobs which require a graduate of any subject. These courses were initially taken in Colleges of Education but with the changes to the structure of Higher Education they can now be found in all sectors of Higher Education (Old Universities {prior to 1992}, New Universities, Colleges of Education and Colleges of Higher Education). The future of the B Ed is under discussion and it may be that it will cease to exist.

The second major route into teaching is called the Post Graduate Certificate in Education. This is awarded to graduates who, having completed their degree and possibly having already pursued a career in industry or commerce, spend a further year following a postgraduate course of teacher training. This route is now the major route for those intending to teach in secondary schools and an increasing number of those intending to teach in primary schools. Compulsory teacher training

for graduates who wish to teach in state sector schools was introduced in 1974. However it was not implemented for teachers of shortage subjects, such as the sciences and mathematics, until a decade later. It is still possible to teach in independent schools without a teaching qualification but in practice very few of the major independent schools would employ unqualified teachers. The number of entrants to PGCE courses fluctuates considerably. At present the primary courses have a good supply of applicants but some courses, such as secondary school science and mathematics, often fail to reach their target numbers. A buoyant supply of science and mathematics teachers is linked to the economic climate. In a booming economy then few come forward to teach and even those who have a teaching post sometimes move into jobs with better prospects of working conditions and salary. Economic depression is good for producing teachers! The 1930' produced many teachers and each depression since has produced an increase in those wishing to teach. The solution has always been to recruit in times of plenty and to retain when the economy expands. The problem at the moment is that this no longer seems to work and for a number of years now the number of physics students willing to train as teachers has fallen so much that the future of physics teaching in school is now at risk. In times of crisis such as this new training schemes are put forward such as the two year B Ed for those with some higher education credits who want to change career or various licensed teacher schemes for graduates who may wish to go into school directly without a PGCE or others who may have overseas qualifications and wish to train 'on the job' in England. However the numbers involved are small compared with the BEd and the PGCE routes. Recently schools themselves have been able to offer a school based PGCE for which the school provides all the training under the same regulations as higher education. This School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) route was invented at a time of deep suspicion by the Government about what was taught in higher education teacher training courses and so they put the training of recruits to the profession into the hands of the profession itself. It is still a small sector but it finds political favour.

For the rest of this article I will only concern myself with the PCGE course in higher education institutions for secondary school physics teachers which is the main route. In 1992 the then Central Government Department for Education issued the definitive document on Initial Teacher Training (Secondary Phase) [1]. This is a document concerned with the accreditation of teacher training courses by what is now known as The Teacher Training Agency. (Amongst other things finance to Higher Education for the training of teachers is channelled by central government through the TTA as well as the accreditation of courses). One of the three main principles put forward is that schools should play a much larger part in the training of teachers in partnership with Higher Education Institutions (HEI). The minimum time which must be spent in school in the one year PGCE is 120 days. This usually means that 60 days are then spent in the HEI although the SCITT courses are spent entirely in school. The competences which newly qualified teachers

Because the industrial structure has been changing in Japan, the employment of university graduates is also changing (Figure 6). The working population in the primary industries, especially in agriculture, has decreased rapidly since 1960, and in the secondary industry, such as manufacturing, the working population has been decreasing since 1990. In the tertiary industry, such as services, the numbers are increasing. As the birth rates decline employment for school teachers has been decreasing since 1980.

Employment of graduates of Science, Engineering, and Education Faculties in 1997 is shown in Figure 7. Only 22 % of 35,000 Education graduates became teachers of primary or secondary schools while 15% of 102,000 Engineering and 19% of 19,000 Science graduates became teachers in secondary schools. Also some graduates from Junior College became primary school teachers. Because unemployment among education graduates is increasing, the Government decided to decrease the number of entrants to Education faculties from 14,500 in 1998 to 9,500 in 2003.

In order to introduce the Japanese Government’s policy on education, I would like to quote some sentences from “The model for Japanese education in the perspective of the 21^st Century ”(2^nd report), a July 1997 report made by Central Council for Education. The Council wrote,

internationalization, the growth of an information-oriental society, the development of science and technology and aging society, in order to raise creative people with individuality,

(4) It is important to uphold unchanging values, such as cultivating hearts that value tradition and culture, and creating a such sense of humanity with features: such as consideration for others and awareness of society, a sense of morality and of justices,

(5) It is necessary to expand children’s opportunities to make choices in education and expand the scope schools and local public bodies have for using their own direction.

One of the most serious educational problems in Japan is the intense competition among students that begins at a quite young age, ten years old, to enter the better academic secondary schools. More and more Japanese believe that cram schools are the key to success in education. In the Government’s investigation, the question “which form of study do you feel best enhances the educational ability of children: study at school, study through cram schools, or study with private teachers”, the percentage who answered “school” decreased from 72 % in 1976 to 23 % in 1996, while the percentage who answered “cram school” increased from 19 % to 61%. Now people want to relief from the intense competition.

In 1960, the Government announced the 10-year Income Doubling Plan and the promotion of science and engineering education from the primary to the university level. The plan is reflected in the National Curriculum for schools in the 1970s. Since the peak of science education in the 1970s, the teaching hours of science in compulsory education have been decreasing (Figure 8). The change in the proportion of students taking science subjects is shown in Figure 9. The change in the national curriculum for science in high school is shown in Figure 10.

Required Hours/year (35 weeks/year, 1 School Hour = 50 minutes) In 1997, only 13 % of students took Earth Science and 38 % took Physics, while 73 % took Biology and 85 % took Chemistry. In the new school curriculum, the Government is increasing teaching hours of Information and Integrated subjects but decreasing the hours of Science and Mathematics.

The Physics Education Society of Japan, the Physical Society of Japan, and the Japan Society of Applied Physics sent the Minister of Education their suggested requirements for promoting science. Also, other societies concerned with science and science education sent the Minister similar proposals.

The Japan Society of Applied Physics was founded in 1932 and the number of members in 1997 was about 25,000. We polled the members’ opinion of science education using a questionnaire. 2,000 members were selected to participate, and 904 responded by e-mail or mail. The results are as following.

The distribution of occupations and the age of the respondents are shown in Figures 11 and 12. 43% of them are researchers in industries and 37% are on the staffs of universities. The largest age group is in their 30s with the second largest in their 40s.

We asked them when they chose a science career. Their answers fell into three equal-sized groups: Elementary, Lower Secondary and High School (Figure 13). 88 % of respondents were interested in science when they were elementary school students, 92 % when they were lower secondary

Of the persons who most influenced their choice of a science career, 26 % were family, 20 % scientists (Einstein etc.) and 16 % teachers (Figure 15). Of the factors that most affected the choice of a science career, 34% were books on science, scientists and engineers, 27 % scientific or engineering hobbies, and 18 % science classes in schools. To foster future scientists and engineers, the educational environment of young children is very important, not only in school but also home and library.

As to science education in school, they believe experiments (36 %), observations (24 %) and thinking scientifically (14 %) are most important, but computers are not considered so important (2 %) (Figure 17). As the contents of science classes, 42 % of the respondents favor the science of familiar phenomena, 28 % the science of daily life, and 17 % the science of environmental problems.

We asked them if they agreed or disagreed with the following sentences about science and technology in Japan in the future:

1. Japan will lead internationally in basic research in science and technology in the future.

The results of answers from questions 1 to 3 are shown in Figure 19 and to question 4 in Figure 20. To question 4, 51 % of the respondents answered it would decrease, while only 16 % said it would increase. Japanese scientists are losing confidence in the ability of Japan to compete with other countries in the development of science and technology.

The opinions shown above clearly conflict with the current government policy to reduce the science teaching hours in school curriculum in order to make children more relaxed.

We believe science education in school is very important because Japanese traditional culture is different from the western culture which generated science and it is still difficult to foster scientific thinking outside of school. We must reform the educational structure by decentralizing control and giving more autonomy to each teacher with support from organization of educators.

This summer I attended the annual meeting of the Association of Physics Education of Japan at Kagawa National University where I enjoyed teachers’ lectures, presentations and the workshops of hands-on experiments. On our excursion, we visited Te-shima, which used to be a fertile and beautiful island but now is infamous as the most dioxin-polluted land in the world. The people of Te-shima have been suffering from industrial waste for twenty years. The waste was brought by ships from big cities to this small island. One leader of the villager told us that with such environmental problems, the separation between the industries which produce the waste and the victim is so large in spatial location as well as in time that it is difficult to make industries take their proper responsibility.

If we don’t want to pollute Japan’s islands in the future, we must educate people who will live according to both scientific thinking and morality. Because such environmental problems have acquired international importance, we must foster people who have a global point of view.

We must promote the following physics education as the fundamental base of education for the future:

The entrance examinations of each level of school and teacher training education must be changed to promote student-centered education. Every child has curiosity and creativity, but training to solve entrance examination problems kills children’s curiosity and creativity. Teachers must be interested in both science and students' ideas. Teachers must help students to learn physics actively through investigation. In the past thirty years we have organized many international conferences of physics teachers to bring new thinking and more liberated ways of teaching into Japan. As a result, Japanese physics teachers have become more active. We believe international cooperation for the benefit of future physics education must be promoted further.

* Paper originally written for ABSCHLUSSBRICHT DES INTERNATIONALEN SYMPOSIUMS ZUR ZUKUNFT DES PHYSIKUNTERRICHTS "PHYSIK UND TECHNIK IM UNTERRICHT DER ALLGEMEINBILDENDEN SCHULEN; VERGLEICH NRW - USA - JAPAN" edited by Professor Dr. Gernot Born, published 6 January 1999.

System of Education of France

A. Monchablon
In: International Encyclopedia of national Systems of Education
Edited by: T. Neville Postlethwaite

Provided by Prof. Sere Marie-Genevieve

France covers 551.000 square kilometres of territory, and is the largest Western European state. Metropolitan France has an area of 543.965 square kilometres. Since 1918 when Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, its frontiers have remained unchanged. However, the Alsace-Lorraine region retains certain German regulations from the 1871-1918 period, while laws voted on in France during the same period are only partially applied.

Climatic and geographical features have little effect on the educational system, at least in metropolitan France, apart from the existence of a boarding school system in mountainous regions in the Alps and the Pyrenees) which is gradually dying out elsewhere.

Regional differences play little part in the changing patterns of social and political life that have accompanied industrialisation and mass communication, but there are significant regional variations in the status of private religious schools. In the west of France, 40 percent of pupils attend religious schools as compared to a national average of 17 percent.

According to the 1990 census, metropolitan France has a population of 56.6 million inhabitants, with a density of 102 inhabitants per square kilometre, making France the least densely populated major Western European country. Three-fourths of its population are city-dwellers, most of them massed in rapidly expanding urban areas of over 200,000 inhabitants (20.5 million people in all). The city and suburbs of Paris came foremost (9 million inhabitants) with Lyon and Marseilles (1,2 million and 1,1 million inhabitants respectively) trailing far behind. What by Western European standards is a high rate of natural population growth +0.4%) promises to continue. Migratory movements in and out of the country have not changed appreciably these results in a stable Population of foreign residents (3.6 million in 1990 as compared to 3.7 million in 1982) most of whom have lived in France for over 10 years. Children from these families usually attend ordinary French schools. Special courses to learn the family's native language are optional. It is possible to study the local Basque, Occiran, and Corsican languages in secondary school. Few pupils do (less than 1%) although this percentage is higher in Corsica (15%).

The working population stands at 55 percent of the total population. Placing France among the more favoured European Economic Community (EEC) countries. Salaried workers total 85 percent and can be divided into six categories: farmers and smallholders- 5.l percent; craftworkers. shopkeepers, heads of small businesses-7.2 percent: executive staff and the higher intellectual professions-9.6 percent: intermediate professions-19.3 percent: white-collar workers-28.6 percent: and blue-collar workers-30.2 percent (1989 figures). France's 2.1 million civil servants and 1.2 million municipal employees belong to the last four categories. The 1.05 million teachers represent half of the entire French civil service.

According to the 1992 International Labour Office (ILO) figures, there were 2.5 million unemployed in France, or 10.1 percent of the active population, with the categories most affected being manual workers and white-collar workers. This reinforces the belief that education and vocational training are key factors in the fight against unemployment. Women form 42 percent of the active population; their rate of activity (46%) is rising and a woman's career is less frequently interrupted by the arrival of a child than previously, due in part to the spread of day nurseries and nursery-schools accepting children from the age of 2. Foreigners comprise 6.1 percent of the active population. 57 percent of whom are manual workers.

In economic terms, the primary sector represents a mere 6.3 percent of the labor market and 3.4 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP). The secondary sector (industry, excluding the building trades) represents 20.8 and 23.3 percent respectively. France has an open economy and experts amount to 22 percent of the GNP

Some 51 percent of the population over 15 years of age and no longer in school are without a diploma or have only a certificate of primary education. Whereas 11 percent of the population hold diplomas above baccalauréat level. Emphasis is on the need to train sufficient numbers of qualified workers and engineers to meet the country's economic requirements.

Government structure has remained unchanged for a century, but the 1958 Constitution increased the government's authority, and especially that of the French President elected by universal suffrage. For the various parties in office, education has always been an important issue, a theme of political debate, and of much public concern.

The educational system remains under the control of a centralised ministry but regions and departments have enjoyed greater administrative independence since the 1982-83 decentralization, which made them responsible for high schools (lycées) and colleges respectively. This in fact accorded them the same responsibilities that communes have had for over a century with regard to primary schools-limited to school buildings and maintenance. There is also joint planning of the school network by regions and state. In the early 1990s this concerned buildings only and exclude higher education, which remains a state responsibility, but local communities may well wish to play an increasingly important role in educational matters in the future.

As early as 1560 the Catholic Church's role in education came under Crown control. The Edict of Orléans made education a royal prerogative, even though effective responsibility remained in the hands of the religious orders. The idea of education as a national affair to be decided upon by those in power existed before 1789. The French Revolution adopted ideas which had been developed earlier in the eighteenth century, but in addition proclaimed that state education was the key to political freedom and to strong national identity, particularly through linguistic unification. Progress in this direction continued throughout the nineteenth century but the principal structures took shape in the early Years of the Third Republic (1875). Efforts centred on primary education and, to a lesser degree, on universities. A series of laws were passed making primary education free (1881), compulsory between the ages of 6 and 12 (1882), and nondenominational (1882), thereby excluding the religious orders from state primary schools. Education became secularised 20 Years before the separation of church and state in 1905. Universities enjoyed increased financial support and the monopoly of conferring academic diplomas.

Only slight reforms were introduced into the system of secondary education dispensed in high schools (lycées) which dated back to Napoleon's time, and in the even older Jesuit colleges founded during the old regime (the monarchy). These were fee-paying establishments frequented by a social elite and remain so for a long lime. Unlike higher education, the secondary education system was composed of equal numbers of competing state, controlled and religious institutions.

Prier to 1945 there were two parallel networks rather than one educational system: first, the primary school (the communal), followed, for the best of its pupils, by "higher-primary school" (a secondary school), or even by one of the vocational schools created in 1919; these were met with indifference by teachers and parents alike. Second, the lycées, dispensing a classical secondary education and recruiting almost all their pupils from their own primary schools. Capping this classical education was the baccalauréat upon which university entrance depended (pupils from the higher, primary schools were net allowed to sit the baccalauréat). Each network had its own primary and secondary schools, its own teachers. And its own mode of recruiting pupils, and each was directed toward different goals.

Attempts by the Front populaire in 1936 to remove these differences failed. The term "democratization" came into use only after 1945 when efforts were made to create a truly unified educational system. In 1946 an article was inserted into the Constitution (where it still remains) stipulating that "it is the state's obligation to organize free, public, nondenominational education at all levels." Although no law or government statement followed the Langevin-Wallon Commission (1945-47), its findings were much debated and have influenced government policy, at least in part. For the first lime educational goals were clearly defined: (a) to promote equal opportunities; (b) to provide the qualified personnel needed by the economy; and (c) to make it imperative to develop the personality of each child. France was now in a position to embark upon the unification of its educational system. Gradually the "prep schools" attached to lycées were closed down and the various branches of first-cycle secondary education assembled under the one roof of the college. Advancement of the school-leaving age to 16, a measure announced in 1959 but which became effective only in 1967, was another step towards democratization. In 1968, the students' rebellion succeeded in removing the limitations imposed on university entrance, considered contrary to the spirit of democratic schooling, and in transforming university administration.

Finally, the 1959 Debr?Act introduced measures to bring private schools into line with state schools. In return for the financing of their personnel costs, private schools (Catholic for the most part) agreed to comply with Ministry of Education requirements concerning the syllabus, the organization of classes, and so on, and to accept pedagogical inspection. However, the funding of private education still remains a major political issue.

The Education Act of 1989 reaffirmed that the aim of school is to give all individuals the opportunity to develop their personality, to raise their educational level, to take part in social and professional life, and to enjoy full citizenship. It guarantees every person's right to education and training, this being the contribution of schools to the principle of equal opportunities for all. The chief objective is to enable every Young person to reach a recognized level of qualification by a gradual process of orientation, for four out of five to reach baccalauréat level and for those who pass to be able to continue on to higher education.

Figure 1 presents the structure of the formal educational system in diagrammatic form.

There are no structural differences between state and private schools (17% of the school-going population). School attendance is compulsory, between the ages of 6 and 16 (i.e. for 10 years). More and more Young people continue their schooling, which comprised 82 percent of those between the ages of 2 and 22 in 1990 as compared to 66 percent in 1961. Schools are coeducational at all levels. Classes are held morning and afternoon, and school hours vary from some 26 hours of teaching per week in primary schools to 30 hours or more in secondary schools. The 36-week academic year is divided into five equal periods.

Figures for primary school attendance have decreased from 4,9 million to 4 million in 1992) due to a drop in the birthrate. Primary education lasts 5 years and caters for the 6-10 age group. In 1992 approximately 14 percent of pupils attended private schools.

School for this age group is compulsory, meaning that there are no dropouts. In addition, grade-repeating is decreasing. For instance, the percentage of pupils repeating the first year fell from 17.6 percent in 1971 to 8.1 percent in 1990. It is considered that a pupil's future may be jeopardised by having to repeat the first year of primary school. This explains why the last year of pre-primary school and the first year in primary school are now, associated. In 1991, 25 percent of pupils in their last year of primary school had lost one or more years as compared to 52 percent in 1961. It is recognized that grade-repeating occurs more often with pupils from underprivileged social backgrounds. However, the social gap is decreasing. In 1991 classes had an average of 22.5 pupils.

The most important quantitative and qualitative changes in recent years have been in secondary education. This is divided into two cycles. Pupils in the first cycle of secondary, education spend four years in a college (the 6ème, 5ème, 4éme, and 3ème forms) which correspond to the final years of compulsory education. The grade-repeating rate remains stable overall (7-11%). Conversely, the percentage of pupils redirected into classes preparing them for a vocational education has fallen from 30 percent in 1984 to 14.5 percent in 1990. In 1975, 66 percent of pupils entering their first year of secondary school (6ème) reached the final 3éme class, whereas in 1986 this figure rose to 75 percent. In 1991, the average number of pupils per class was 24.3.

The second cycle of secondary education has developed rapidly. Between 1960 and 1990, the number of pupils entering the second cycle has been multiplied by 2.5. In the 1990s, 70 per cent of an age group continue school beyond the age of 16, due to growing social aspirations rather than to demographic growth factors, and it seems unlikely that this tendency will be reversed.

The second cycle of secondary education is divided into two streams. General and technical high schools (lycées) prepare pupils in 3 years (the 2éme, 1 ère, and terminale) for the baccalauréat, which 7 out of 10 pupils sit. Enrolment in the second cycle comprises 40 percent of a cohort, meaning that since 1960 attendance has tripled, especially given the decreasing dropout rate at this level. Grade-repeating is high, however, with rates of 16 percent for the first year (2ème) and 12 percent for the second year (1ére). This explains an increase in the number of pupils per class-31 in 1991. Private schools enrol one-fifth of a cohort at this level. As a result of the higher rate of grade-repeating, the decrease in the average age of high school pupils came to a halt in about 1980. In 1991 only 36 percent of pupils in the final form were 17 years old (the theoretical age of pupils in that class) or younger.

Finally, 35.4 percent of pupils entering their first year of secondary school (6ème) in 1973 pursued their schooling up to the terminale compared to 45.6 percent for pupils enrolled in 6ème in 1980.

Some 71 percent of the candidates sitting for the baccalauréat pass the examination, in a third of the cases this is a technical baccalauréat. Pupils from the less privileged social categories have been the ones to benefit most from this general rise. For instance, in 1973, 25.5 percent of children from families of qualified manual workers entered the terminal class as compared to 79.5 percent from families of senior executives, whereas in 1980 these figures rose to 35.4 and 83.7 percent respectively. Admittedly the major inequalities still exist, visible now in the choice of one or another type of baccalauréat, the scientific sections being those preferred by the wealthy and the technical sections by pupils from less favored backgrounds.

Some people maintain therefore that high schools boost only surface equality, not true equality.

The other stream of the second cycle of secondary education takes place in vocational high schools (lycées professionnels). Attendance figures at these schools have doubled between 1960 and 1990, representing 30 percent of a given age group, but the dropout rate stands at 40 percent of the total number of school dropouts. Pupils in the vocational high schools follow a two-year program leading to a Certificat d'Aptitude professionnelle (CAP) or, more frequently now, the less specialized Brevet d'Etudes professionnelles (BEP). One-fourth of pupils attend private schools. In 1989 half the pupils with a BEP started work, a fourth returned to the general technical high school, and another fourth stayed on in the vocational high school to prepare for one of the vocational baccalauréats (bacs pros) created in 1987 and which, five years later, represented 10 percent of the total number of baccalauréats in that year. Their popularity is likely to grow.

Demand for education is such that the number of pupils leaving school each year without a diploma or with simply a Brevet des collèges has fallen from 39 percent of the total in 1983 to 31 percent in 1989. Of this 31 percent, school-leavers without any vocational qualification represented a nearly stable 14 percent of total exits. Some 44.4 percent of the relevant age group passed the baccalauréat in 1990 as compared to 11 percent in 1960 and 20 percent in 1970. The percentage of pupils reaching baccalauréat level rose from 30 percent in 1973 to 54.5 percent in 1990.

Female students are in the majority in the long second-cycle stream of secondary education (54.5), but in the minority in the vocational high schools (46.8%), partly because girls get better results and partly because vocational education is traditionally oriented toward masculine careers.

Geographical inequalities are becoming reduced but more pupils reach baccalauréat level in the Southwest and west of France than in the Northeast. In 1990 the difference between extremes dropped to 13 points compared to 17 in 1975. This is not due to cultural reasons alone (i.e., the importance of industrial employment in the north), but also to reasons within the educational system itself; for instance, regions where fewer pupils reach baccalauréat level are often those which find it hard to recruit teachers.

Nine out of ten pupils with the baccalauréat continue their education and more and more students pass this examination, hence the growing demand for higher education. In 1992 there were 1,820,000 students and the student population will continue to increase. In France, universities (the open sector) dispensing general rather than professional education, and those involved in research, remain traditionally distinct from the grandes écoles, which select their students and dispense a professionally oriented higher education, though this difference is lessening.

Some 69 percent of the student population attend universities. Over half are women except in the sciences. One-third of students study the humanities and social sciences, a fifth study science, a fourth study law and economics, and one-tenth study medicine (the only discipline with selective enrolment). Half the university population are first- and second-year students, indicating the increased number of students and the high dropout rate at this level. It is estimated that one first-year student in five abandons university.

Professional training courses within the university system have been created since the 1970s, catering for all levels, ranging from technical engineer training in university institutes of technology to qualified engineer training. Entrance to these courses is usually selective. In addition, technical training courses are organized in the top classes of high schools: 12 percent of students are enrolled in these courses and numbers are growing rapidly.

Institutions known as the grandes écoles make up the second largest sector of higher education. These are principally engineering schools and schools of business and administration. They are often private institutions and are attended by a limited number of students (6%). Their policy is less to increase in size than to recruit the best pupils from the general scientific sections of high schools, through a competitive examination for which students prepare in the top forms of the lycée(the preparatory classes to the grandes écoles comprise 4% of students). Certain grandes écoles carry out research. These institutions are the direct route to leading posts in French society, and students from the upper social strata enrol in these institutions rather than in universities. .

France's preprimary school system is well developed. Teachers in these écoles maternelles hold the same qualifications as primary school teachers. The écoles maternelles is regarded as the place to identify possible difficulties at an early age and as a tool to reduce inequalities, mainly by developing the ability to talk. It accepts children from the age of 2. The proportion of 2 year olds is now stable (35.6% in 1990); 99 percent of' 3-, 4- and 5-year olds attend pre-primary school as compared to 42 percent in 1964. In 1990 a total of 2.5 million children attended pre-primary school (19% of the total school population), a figure which should not vary to any great extent in the future.

Education for the handicapped mostly takes place in special schools. Primary education (concerning 1.1% of pupils) may be in special classes within ordinary schools or in special institutions. Since the mid-1970s the number of pupils concerned has been halved, essentially due to early diagnosis and the policy of integrating such pupils into the ordinary educational system.

Handicapped pupils continue their secondary education in special sections in ordinary schools or possibly in special schools where they receive vocational training. Their numbers have not varied in the 1980s. Finally, 0.8 percent are educated in institutions coming under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.

Technical and vocational education have never been considered as important as general education in France. Despite official attempts to change this view, the latter is getting more and more attractive for students and parents.

Technical education, provided in general and technical high schools, leads to a baccalauréat technique, and then to technical higher education which lasts TWO years, provided either in the top forms of lycées (Sections de technicien supérieurs) or in the universities (Instituts Universitaires de Technologie).

Vocational education is the responsibility of the Lycées Projessionnels, where students follow a two-year program leading to a number of specialized diplomas—(250 different Certificats d',Aptitude Professionnelle, and 34 different Brevets d'Etudes Professionnelles). These are defined by employment Organizations. About one fourth of school time is spent in the workplace. Though bacs pros are developing, overall figures of vocational education are decreasing in favour of general education. Apprenticeship, which follows education, is also decreasing; fewer than 130000 Young people are following this path, mostly in the handicrafts sector. Since 1987, training programs may lead even to an engineer's diploma. The idea of increasing apprenticeships is now being discussed.

Business education is offered at selected higher education institutions, mainly private, for which students prepare in public institutions, the top forms of lycées.

Nonformal education consists principally of further adult education since France has no open universities. Under the 1971 Adult Education Act, employers are obliged to contribute to the major part of its monetary cost. All working people have the right to adult education, and each year one person in four benefits from it. The aim is professional improvement and better standards of general education. Surveys show that those who benefit most are quite well-qualified active males, for the most part between 25 and 40 years old. Training programs have, however, been created for young adults entering the labour market and for the unemployed. These programs are run by public and private bodies selected by employers. The Ministry of Education organises about one-sixth of vocational training programs.

The French tradition of centralized administration applies also to the Ministry of Education, even given steps toward decentralization in 1982-83. Its control over educational matters is almost total, the one important exception being France's agricultural high schools (134,000 pupils in 1984) which are governed by the Ministry of Agriculture. Various institutions of higher professional education come under other ministries, such as the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature (Ministry of Justice), the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (the Prime Minister's office), and the Ecole Polytechnique (the Ministry of Defense).

The Ministry of Education came into existence over one Century and a half ago but was only named as such in 1932. Virtually all staff working in state schools are civil servants. Its payroll is the largest of all ministries and hence its budget occasionally tops all other state budgets.

The Ministry of Education produces an abundance of regulations on questions of management (including curricula and timetables) and supervision with which the majority of private schools are also required to comply. In addition, a commission appointed by the Ministry of Education approves the diplomas delivered by many of the higher schools of business and engineering in the private sector.

France is divided into 28 academic zones. Each academy corresponds roughly to a region and is directed by a rector who represents the Minister of Education and to whom part of the latter's functions have been delegated. The rector is responsible for the management of primary and secondary schools and for the enforcement of national regulations within the academy. He or she is chancellor of the universities in the relevant academic zone and is required to enforce current decisions concerning higher education.

At the level of the département, the rector is represented by an academic inspector who directs the local education board and whose principal task is to supervise primary education. He or she is not entitled to intervene in higher education.

In 1990, national expenditure on education amounted to FF414 billion (US$75.8 billion) or 6.4 percent of the GNP. Education is principally financed by the state. However, the financial contribution of local administrations (regions, départements and communes) has increased (16.8% of national expenditure) with a proportionate decrease in state expenditure (66.5%), since the 1982-83 decentralization. The 6 percent contributed by employers to national expenditure on education is paid in the form of funds for adult training programs, without which employers are required to pay an apprenticeship tax. Finally the 9.9 percent borne by households represents their part in the financing of canteens (frequented by approximately half the school population), boarding schools (5% of the school population), and enrollment in higher education (in 1991 university entrance fees ranged from FF1000 to 2000--US$183 to 366). Teaching activities absorb 82 percent or four-fifths of national expenditure on education. Table 1 summarizes the evolution of the Ministry of Education budget.

The 1993 Ministry of Education budget amounted to FF281.8 billion (US$45.1 billion), 90.6 percent of which represented personnel costs, including pensions. Expenditure broken down by level of education, pensions excluded, is as follows: primary education: 26.1 percent (including state preprimary schools: 6.1%); secondary education: 53.5 percent (first-cycle state secondary schools: 18.2%, state high schools: 11.4%, state vocational schools: 6.9%); higher education: 14.4 percent; and general organizational expenses: 6 percent.

The lower figures for primary school expenditure are due to a decrease in the number of pupils and the fact that until now the salaries of primary school teachers have been below those paid in secondary schools, where the number of pupils has risen rapidly.

Variations in average per student expenditure (see Table 2) according to educational level are principally due to fluctuations in the pupil-teacher ratio and in teacher salary scales. University institutes of technology, and engineering schools especially, incur high expenditures, given their heavy operating costs and large teaching staffs.

Family expenditure on school supplies and clothes, excluding canteen and boarding school costs and sociocultural expenses, increases as the educational level rises, from FF1000 (US$183)/year for a pupil in the first secondary year to FF1600 (US$293)/year for a lycée pupil. Half of this expenditure is incurred at the beginning of the school year. The average annual cost per student in higher education is estimated an FF30,000 (US$5.495).

Grants are provided principally by the Ministry of Education. There are none at the primary school level but one secoldary student in every four receives a grant depending on family income. This proportion is higher for pupils attending the vocational secondary schools (one pupil in three). The size of the grant varies according to the level of studies with an average of FF1770 (US$324) allocated to a lycée student in 1991.

In France, pupils in primary school and the first cycle of secondary education receive their school textbooks free of charge. Some 23 percent of students in higher education receive some form of aid. The majority of grants are allocated on the basis of family income (17% of the student population in 1990). In the early 1990s, the goal is to increase the size of grants (an average of FF13,000(US$2,381 per year )) and for grants to be allocated to 25 percent of the student population. In 1991 a system of three-year bank loans guaranteed by the state was created for students who had completed their first year of higher education.

In 1992, 1,078,136 people were employed by the Ministry of Education, 778,217 being teachers. In France, school management, student guidance, and the supervision of pupils are tasks performed by people other than teaching personnel. Table 3 shows the numbers of teaching personnel at each educational level, including figures for the private sector.

Some 61 percent of state-employed teaching personnel are women. Percentages vary from 95 percent in preprimary schools and 74 percent in primary schools to 51 percent in secondary schools. In the private sector figures are still higher: 91 percent in primary schools and 65 percent in secondary schools.

In 1992 secondary school teachers outnumbered primary school teachers whereas until 1990 it had been the reverse. The number of teachers tripled in the Period 1950 to 1990. While there used to be a great many auxiliary staff, owing to the shortage of teachers, in 1990 the percentage of state-paid auxiliary teachers was only 1 percent. Most are employed at the secondary level (12% of the teaching staff in state schools, 47% in Private secondary schools).

Between 1991 and the turn of the century some 13.000 primary school teachers and 180,000 secondary School teachers will need to be recruited. This may be difficult, especially in the sciences.

Since 1991 the initial training of primary and secondary school teachers has been organized under one roof, in the university teacher-training institutes (IUFM) attached to universities. Candidates receive a mixture of university tuition and practical training besides developing the ability to transmit knowledge. Training lasts two years and a bachelor's degree is needed to enroll. Candidates sit for the different teacher recruitment examinations after the first year, becoming trainee civil servants if they pass. The second year emphasizes practical training experience. Civil servant status is acquired at the same time as the jury-conferred diploma.

The competitive agrégation examination to recruit lycée high-school teachers and open only to candidates with a master's degree (4 years of university studies) continues to exist. The iufm also train candidates wishing to become high-school teachers. There are no training requirements for teaching personnel at the level of higher education.

The IUFM also provide inservice training. Primary school teachers are entitled to 36 weeks of further training in the course of their career and are replaced in the classroom during the one- or two-week training courses organized by the local board of education. Academic training programs for secondary school teachers exist, but at this level teachers have no contractual right to inservice training.

Teacher training ends with a series of qualifying examinations at the preprimary and primary school level or at the secondary level specializing in general education, technical education, or vocational education.

Inspectors visit classrooms regularly and teachers are marked on their classroom performance. This mark is important for career advancement.

The French system makes no clear distinction between curriculum and syllabus. School programs are a mixture of both and are defined chiefly by their content of knowledge. There are strict stipulations concerning the number of hours to be devoted annually to programs at primary and secondary levels. Programs are drawn up by a National Program Committee composed of outside experts appointed by the Minister. There are no regional variations and programs are adopted at the national level by the Ministry of Education.

School textbooks and other teaching equipment are produced by private enterprises without ministerial control or approval, and play a de facto role in the interpretation of official programs.

More than 10 foreign languages are offered at the secondary level, and all secondary schools teach at least three languages. The study of one foreign language is obligatory and the study of a second foreign language may be made obligatory in the third secondary year (4ème). Students beginning the second cycle (2éme) may choose a third language as an option. In all, 85 percent of students choose English as their first language, and half choose Spanish as their second language.

On their classroom visits inspectors periodically verify that programs are being completed, in addition to this, practically all subjects studied in class are set as part of the baccalauréat examination.

The problem is different in the case of higher education. Universities are free to decide on their programs but before being able to confer state-recognized diplomas the content of their programs must be approved by the Minister. The National Program Committee bas the task of ensuring that programs are coherent and progress in stages, with emphasis not only on knowledge but also on acquiring the necessary skiffs.

Promotion is not automatic. At the end of each year teachers decide who is to move on to the next grade. At the primary school level this is a group decision taken by the teaching staff, but at the college and lycée levels the decision is taken by the class council. This decision must be accepted by the family in the case of college students whereas for high-school students families are able to appeal against a decision. Studies show that half of the students who appealed against a decision to repeat a class continued their schooling satisfactorily.

The class council (composed of teachers, representatives of parents and pupils, and the head of the school) also decides on how pupils are to be oriented, in the presence of guidance counselors. Families may also appeal against decisions orienting a pupil into one rather than another stream. Crucial decisions come at the end of the second year in secondary school and then again at the end of the first secondary cycle (3éme), when it is decided whether pupil should continue in the general education system or be directed toward vocational training. Family influence courts but family expectations vary according to social status.

The first school diploma, called "Brevet," obtained at the end of the first cycle of secondary education represents nine years of schooling and has no direct influence on a pupil's school career. The main school diploma is the baccalauréat which certifies completion of secondary education and allows a student to enter university (except where limitations are imposed on entrance, e.g., medical schools). In reality, not all baccalauréats en joy the same prestige. To go into the closed sectors of higher education (grandes écoles, university institutes of technology, etc.) a general and preferably a scientific baccalauréat is needed.

University students obtain their first diploma at the end of their second academic year. The introduction of units to be earned may prevent students who abandon their studies at this stage from feeling they have gained nothing.

Assessment of education and the educational system is conducted at several levels. The Ministry of Education carries out statistical surveys to study school careers of various samples of students. The General Board of Inspectors conducts studies to assess teaching methods or even regional inequalities. There is also an evaluation in all schools of the skills acquired by pupils having completed their third year of primary education and also their first secondary year. The results obtained at the institutional level are not made public to avoid creating a hierarchy of schools.

These surveys include research on school learning processes, and try reorganization of pre-primary and primary education in the early 1990s into cycles is in part a consequence of such research. Additional research themes concern factors other than the teaching processes able to induce scholastic failure or success; for example, the organisation of educational institutions and their mode of functioning, the role of the various actors in the educational system, and regional disparities and differences between types of institution. Particular attention is paid to dropout rate at all educational levels, and to the numbers of pupils reaching the baccalauréat level.

The reforms being undertaken or already completed aim at improving the educational system by remodelling its structures rather than by setting out radically to transform it. The target is to educate 80 percent of an age group up to baccalauréat level by the year 2000 and for all pupils to reach at least the level of vocational qualification. To this end preprimary and primary classes are being grouped into three cycles instead of divided into six compartmentalized classes, making it easier to follow each pupil over this six- year period and to avoid unnecessary repetition of a class. There are proposals to diversify the content of secondary education and teaching methodology but within the framework of a unified national program, with schools able to decide on how best to cover the program according to the needs of their pupils.

At the higher education level it should be possible to reduce the number of dropouts by reorganizing the first year and by providing training courses of a more professional nature.

Finally, future primary and secondary school teachers will receive a common core of training in the university teacher-training institutes (IUFM), with emphasis on the professional aspects of teaching.

From the way in which the educational system is likely to develop, it can be inferred that the main problems will center on the need for more and better-trained teaching personnel as a result of the increased demand for secondary and higher education. It will also be necessary to deal with growing cultural differences within the school and student population. There is debate as to whether unstreaming at the college or even the lycée level will democratize education or whether it will be a cause of failure for pupils from low-income families. Generally speaking, the difficulty will be to strike a balance between educating a whole generation to a high and relatively homogenous level and the new concern to focus training on the varied individual facets of a student's personality.

Finally, given the financial implications and the many ways of responding to the above problems, it can be expected that there will be a shift in the present balance between the role of the state and that of local communities.

Bienaym?A 1986 L'Enseignement supérieur et l'idée d'universit? Economica, Paris

Cahiers français 1991 Le système éducatif, 249. La Documentation Française, Paris

Charlot B 1987 L'Ecole en mutation, Crise de l'Ecole et mutations sociales. Payot, Paris

Collège de France 1985 Propositions pour l'enseignement de l'avenir. La Documentation Française, Paris

Legrand L 1982 Pour un collège démocratique. Rapport au Ministre de l'Education Nationale. La Documentation Française, Paris

Lesourne J 1988 Education et sociét? Les défis de l'an 2000. La Découverte, Paris

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PHYSICS EDUCATION IN CHINA

LUO Xingkai
Institute of Physics Education, Guangxi Normal University
E-mail: xkluo@mailbox.gxnu.edu.cn.

In China, children start at the age of 7, after 3 or 4 years in kindergarten, a 5 years long (for 35% of the total) or 6 years long (for 65% of the total) elementary school, followed by 3 years of junior high school; thus they finish the compulsory education stage. According to the statistics in 1997, 93.7% of the graduates of elementary school continue schooling at junior high school level. Then they have to take a locally unified examination in order to enter a senior high school. In the city area, most graduates of junior high school, though only 44.3% for the average, continue their studies in senior high schools classified in three different types: the so-called key school, ordinary school and vocational/technical school. If comparing only what is taught in the first two kind schools, one will find no significant difference between them. Yet the number of key schools is much lower than either of the other two, and a key school which ranks at a certain level from a local district of a city to a national one, enjoys great privilege in selecting students and getting better resources. Therefore, much fewer graduates from an ordinary senior high school than from a key school can pass the examination for entering a university, although most students from such a school are also supposed to take it as their common goal. So, higher education remains a dream for the majority of young people. In 1999 academic year, colleges and universities will enroll 1.3 million graduates of senior high school. But, although being the highest record since 1978, it will only satisfy the need of about one-third of the total graduates,

The disciplines and their content taught in schools are prescribed by the national curriculum syllabi issued by the Ministry of Education. The syllabi have been kept changing and adjusting since 1980 toward, more or less, the direction with more flexibility and diversity. For example, in 1993 a policy that made locally regulated disciplines along with the nationally unified ones possible was put into practice in pre-junior high school levels. For senior high school students, more optional courses are offered.

At both junior and senior high school level, science is taught separately as Physics, Chemistry and Biology. At elementary level, there is a course named "Nature" which can be regarded as the only integrated science course in school. But unfortunately, it is perhaps the worst course on elementary level in terms of both its role played in the school curriculum and the way of being taught in the classroom. The course is usually assigned to teach by a teacher who has another subject as his/her main task, Chinese Language or Mathematics for instance, and both teachers and parents pay little attention to the result of science course. At junior high school level, courses of integrated science have now been tentatively implemented in some schools in Zhejiang and Shanghai. Feedback from the experiments has indicated that no real progress can be reached without successful teacher training. Unfortunately, until now only efforts in providing double-majored education have been undertaken in some teacher colleges and universities in order to prepare future teachers competent in teaching two or more subjects in high school.

Even now China still has a highly unified examination system ranging from a school to national scale. This reminds one of the Chinese imperial examination system started over 1,400 years ago for selecting certain royal officials. However, that should not be simply and directly regarded as the origin of today's system because everyone knows that the imperial examination system has being officially criticized in China since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 for its narrow and useless content and extremely utilitarian orientation. In Chinese ancient as well as modern literature a student learning for examination was very often described as a brainless bookworm lacking genuine ability. But the current examination system led by the nationwide unified university entrance examination indeed significantly impacts on the teaching and learning in schools at all levels. The school education in most cases is examination-centered. In establishing this situation, examination undoubtedly plays a vital role because it determines a student's subsequent education and future opportunities. However, there is a much more complicated background. The traditional conception of and attitude to the education of next generation, the still-existing differences between life in a city and in rural area and feedback from employment market which has gradually become a free one all contribute more or less to the school instruction.

Although in Chinese traditional family ethic, children should respect their parents and other elders, there was also a tradition that parents, especially mothers, made sacrifice to the education of their children. There were many touching stories in every era describing how the parents overcame huge difficulties to get their children educated. There was also a lot of attractive stories, being performed in different ways of art, picturing the process of getting success in education through hard work. This undoubtedly contributed to the formation of a situation described by some educators as "binding the schools, the students and their parents in the same tank toward the same destination". According to my observation, this situation has entered into the wave crest period in our society and will be kept high for years to come due to two important reasons. First, parents of today's children belong to a special generation that in majority lost opportunities for a higher education for themselves or even for regular schooling. They would like their children to finish their dream. Therefore, heavy pressure is exerted on their children as well as on themselves. Second, most children now come from the family with only one child and become the center in many families. Parents as well as grandparents in many cases constitute a very strong force influencing the education. Moreover, message from recent employment market strongly advised the public that without a diploma of higher education, it is difficult to find a good job. In this way, the society has become, more or less, diploma-oriented and the education examination-oriented.

How the physics teachers are trained also has great impact on general physics education in China. Since early 1950's, our teacher education has been performed in the system adopted from the former Soviet Union. Normal colleges and universities were founded specially for pre-service education of high school teachers. Different departments were established corresponding to the school disciplines. Future physics teachers are trained at the physics department where most professors recognize themselves as physicists or physics teachers. They think, consciously or unconsciously, that they are teaching physics and therefore physics is the most important and should be their main concern. In most normal universities the curricula for prospective physics teachers are almost a copy of those for future physicists except for offering several pedagogical courses which, however, take only about 5% of the total program for teacher education. As to the result of this measure, perhaps the following comment given by an American visiting professor who had one year physics teaching experience in one of the leading Chinese normal university is more objective and instructive: "My students were generally well-prepared and well motivated. They were both interested in and good at the abstract aspects of physics, having less interest in or experience with its applications. They were narrowly focused on physics, and had few outside interests. They were excellent test takers and my attempts to determine relative strengths and weaknesses were thwarted by their uniformly high test scores. Students were usually reluctant to volunteer answers in class for fear they would appear to be showing off, but answered questions thoroughly when asked. (see Proceedings of ICUPE, AIP1997 pp.867-868) " It does not sound very bad, but considering the changed and changing environment for physics education we have no reason for being optimistic.

Modern physics education in China has less than 100 years history but, more often than not, took a better position than other science disciplines. According to the current national curriculum, physics is a required course and covers the period from the second year of junior high school until finishing for all high school students. The only exception is that in the last year of senior high school those aiming at studying humanity and society science in future higher education will leave physics and thus the mainstream of other students. The statistics in 1997 showed that there were above 40 million high school students taking physics in China. Undoubtedly no other individual country in the world has so large a physics learning population. However, due to its highly planned and independent teacher education system described above, physics is usually taught by those who have a least 8 years experience of formal physics learning: 5 years in high school and 3 years in teacher college's physics major. Although in some rural areas one teacher has to teach two and even more subjects, to teach such a subject as physics by a non-specialist is not common. Moreover, physics is enjoying the greatest number of hours of any science in the national curriculum even though it has experienced a continued cut in the last 15 years. The most important impetus for this special treatment was the government and population's common understanding of the unique importance of physics in helping the country's industrialization. Will this favorable environment last without any problem?

From the information above, one might conclude that the environment for physics education in China is much better than in most western countries. As a matter of fact, we are not so lucky. While facing a rather simple world we were embarrassingly lacking resources. Now, although being still far from a developed condition, we have already faced almost all the challenges that the physics teachers in the industrialized countries ever met.

First, the gradually released ideological atmosphere during the last 20 years finally brought about the critical thinking about the education goals and objectives as well as about the way to evaluate student's achievement. Generally speaking, this idea transit is advancing toward a more open, personalized and democratic education system. This orientation has been embodied into the government policy of education reform. For example, in 1986, the Ministry of Education issued a policy to promote diversity of school textbooks by establishing a school textbook evaluation system that, in principle, gives any individual and unit the right to write a textbook. In recent years, the idea of replacing the prevalent "Education for Examination" with the so-called "Education for Suzhi" has taken the status of being a supporting philosophy of school education as a result of the promotion of both government, society and economical development. "Suzhi" in Chinese means the individual's general competence integrated by one's knowledge, intellectual and practical skills and affective characters. So, "Education for Suzhi" advocates the education emphasizing full and harmonious development for all students, not only for the future experts and leaders, to prepare qualified future citizens in an increasingly knowledge-and-intelligence-oriented society. In terms of science education, it corresponds the idea of "Science literacy for all". All these changes have become a real challenge for science teachers as they put them in a situation for which most of them have not been well prepared.

Besides, with the "opening" of China and its social and economic development, a teacher, especially physics teacher, has felt increasingly the difficulty to motivate and satisfy his or her students. Competing with television, computer and the related games and other distractions, the chalk-and-talk instruction dominating most present physics classrooms is obviously in a very weak position. The trump-card-effect of using examination is losing its force especially for students with little possibility of success. For physics teachers, how to enhance their students' interest in learning physics is another reality and an unavoidable challenge, unprecedented for many of them.

Moreover, for physics teachers, their relatively strong academic background in science is a passport toward technology-oriented and better-paid jobs created by the economical reform since 1979 in China. Therefore, keeping motivation for physics education is also a big challenge for many physics teachers themselves. Although the current situation seems not worrying because economical growth has been drawn a bit, one can not forget the most difficult period not long ago when too many people seemed only to pay attention to the newly-established stock market in China.

4. Prospect of the future: enhancing teachers' role in turning the challenge into opportunities

The challenges described above do mean more difficulties and problems facing the present physics education in China. However, in long-term concern it may be an opportunity for healthy development of future physics education. Because by shaking the traditional education philosophy and practice it may make one walk out from the illusionary ideas about physics and physics teaching/learning which have without trouble accompanied many physics teachers for years but actually are unscientific and unreasonable according to the modern view of education. Nevertheless, it is impossible to turn the challenge into opportunities without conscious and persistent effort of enough innovative and enthusiastic physics teachers. Fortunately, in China we do have such kind of teachers. Considering their model roles for other teachers, they were, are and will be the most effective impetus and working force of physics education innovation in China. Since 1980's China began to establish connection with the international physics education community and thus gave those teachers with enthusiasm and competence for physics education innovation more opportunities for both professional and self-confidence enhancement. In recent years, some of them had the chance to go abroad meeting and exchanging opinions with their counterparts in other countries. In 1997 at the "Creativity in Physics Education" conference in Sopron, Hungary and in 1998 at the "Hands-on Experiments in Physics Education" conference in Duisburg, Germany they learned a lot from other participants and also got themselves being recognized. In August 1999, more of them will meet at the "'99 International Conference of Physics Teachers and Educators" in Guilin, China with colleagues and distinguished experts from many parts of the world and will certainly make good use of the opportunity to promote progress of physics education in China.

Age	3 4 5	6 7 8 9 10 11	12 13 14	15 16 17	18 19 20 21 22 21	24 25 26 27
	Kinder- Garden	Elementary School	Lower Second	High School	University & College	Master	Doctor
	Kinder- Garden	Elementary School	Lower Second	High School	University & College	Graduate
1997	63%	100%	100%	97%	41%	3%	406
Inst.	14,790	24,482	11,269	5,496	598+576	0.8%	293

1963-1972	1973-1981	1982-1993	1994-2001	2002
Physics A	Physics I	Physics	Physics IA	Physics I
Physics B	Physics II		Physics IB	Physics II
			Physics II
Chemistry A	Chem. I	Chemistry	Chem. IA	Chemistry I
Chemistry B	Chem. II		Chem. IB	Chemistry II
			Chem. II	Biology I
Biology	Biology I	Biology	Biology IA	Biology II
Biology	Biology II		Biology IB
Earth Science	Earth Sci. I	Earth Sci.	Earth Sci. IA	Earth Sci. I
	Earth Sci. II		Earth Sci. IB	Earth Sci. II
			Earth Sci. II
	Basic Sci.	Science I	Integrated Sci.	Integrated Sci. A
	Basic Sci.	Science II		Integrated Sci. B
				Basic Science
420 (4 subj.)	210 (3 subj.)	140 (Sci. I)	140 (2 subj.)	140 (2 subj.)

	1952	1957	1960	1963	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1988	1989	1990	1991	1993
As percentage of state budget	7.4	10	12	13.6	16.3	16.9	18.1	19	16	18.3	17.9	18.5	19.3	20.5
As percentage of GNP	1.33	1.85	2.30	2.35	3.08	3.23	3.22	3.61	3.85	3.50	3.40	3.50	3.60	3.70

Preprimary	FF 15,600
Primary	FF 19,000
Secondary (1^st cycle)	FF 31,600
Secondary (2^nd cycle)	FF 41,200
IUT	FF 72,000
University	FF 36,500

Number of teachers	Preprimary	Primary (including schools for handicapped)	1^st cycle	Secondary 2^nd cycle (vocational)	2^nd cycle (general & technical)	Higher-
						Full professors	Total
Public	300.409		181.837	61.119	122.461	15.204	57.429
Private	42.195(1991)		42.070	85.163		—	—