Tertiary Education of Evolutionary Biology in Asia

Abstract

“Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky TG, Am Biol Teach 35:125–129, 1973). As evolution underpins all branches of biological sciences, it is believed that evolutionary biology should constitute a major component of the biology curriculum in tertiary education. The present study surveys the biology curricula of universities in Asia, Europe and North America in light of comparing the teachings of evolutionary biology between the three regions. Based on the list of universities provided in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2013–2014, this survey compares all the 40 Asian universities that offer undergraduate programmes in general biology to the same number of universities each randomly selected from Europe and North America from the same list. It was found that only ~70 % of the Asian universities offer a course with evolutionary biology as a major component, while ~90 % of the European universities and all the North American universities surveyed offer such courses. Moreover, whereas this type of courses is compulsory in about 20 % of the Asian universities, it is mandatory in the biology programmes for over 50 % of the universities in the other two regions. These results lead us to hypothesise that Asian universities are currently lagging behind their European and North American counterparts in educating their biology students in the area of evolutionary biology.