Doc. 8335

4 March 1999

Basic education in science and technology

Recommendation 1379 (1998)

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 660^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (23 February 1999)

The Committee of Ministers shares the Parliamentary Assembly's concern in drawing attention to the importance of basic education in science and technology. In a world where the New Information Technologies (NIT) have become the primary vectors of communication, basic education in science and technology is necessary to enable individuals to master these new instruments which have the capacity to prepare them better for their day-to-day life and occupations.

The ability to use the NIT is an essential precondition for active citizenship in a modern, democratic information society. It is important that pupils and students be made computer literate, otherwise already disadvantaged groups will find themselves in an even more difficult situation, and further groups of the population could become marginalised.

Beyond the mastery of the NIT, basic education in science and technology should cover all areas of scientific and technological activity. In the perspective of an active and responsible democratic citizenship, it is, in particular, of great importance to develop an understanding of the whole range of ecological and environmental considerations.

This education in science and new technologies should necessarily be undertaken at all levels of education (secondary, higher, vocational, and further training) and become a key element in education policy. It is in this perspective that the Education Committee will organise a symposium in 1999 on the use of NIT in history teaching, a symposium on the impact of NIT on schools and a reflection on the challenges of science teaching.

      The Committee of Ministers fully shares the Assembly's concern for the need to promote the interest of girls and young women in science and technology (paragraphs 5 and 8.iv). The compendium of examples of good practice for access to higher education, elaborated by the Higher Education and Research Committee, should contain references to the efforts made to increase the promotion of female teachers, researchers and students in science and technology education. The issue of equal access, especially as concerns gender equality in access to NTI, will be addressed at the seminar mentioned above.

Education in new information technologies should not, however, be restricted to general, vocational and higher education. Provision should be made for out-of-school and occupational training to build on the knowledge acquired in this field during compulsory schooling with a view to updating and perfecting the skills acquired.

It is for this reason that, as part of its new project on "Life-long Learning for Equity and Social Cohesion: a new Challenge to Higher Education", the Higher Education and Research Committee has decided to devote an activity to a consideration of new information technologies.

In the framework of its programme devoted to NIT, the Culture Committee also intends to examine the use of new technologies to foster education, exchanges and cultural understanding. Accordingly, priority should be given to the question of literacy and youth creativity. A European network of educational and cultural centres specialising in NIT will also be launched.

With a view to consolidating the personal and social development and creativity of young people, care should be taken to ensure that activities with information technologies are accompanied by contacts and exchanges with others in order to derive full benefit from these new media while avoiding their potential dangers.

Whereas the Committee of Ministers fully endorses the idea of strengthening basic education in science and technology, it cannot on the other hand bring itself to accept the proposal set out in paragraph 7 of the Recommendation according to which the Council of Europe and the European Union should award a quality label to initiation programmes of particularly high standard. The Committee of Ministers believes that the Council of Europe does not have the competence to evaluate the quality of such programmes, nor does the Secretariat have adequate resources to perform tasks of this nature.

The Committee of Ministers nevertheless supports the idea contained in paragraph 8.v of the Recommendation which states that education in science and technology "relates to more than purely job-related applications of the new communications technologies".

As borne out by the follow-up action to the Second Summit concerning NIT, very great care should be taken to examine the context in which these technologies are used and their social repercussions should be realised: the education system as a whole has an undeniable role to play in raising awareness of this phenomenon.

In this respect, particular attention will be devoted to this question during the project on Education for Democratic Citizenship. It is in this perspective that the Education Committee has decided to devote the forum to be held in March 1999 to "The challenges of science teaching".