Reflections on Upper Secondary Science for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Despite the global trend toward the universalization of school completion, and despite the weakening or deletion of examination filters controlling access to the upper tiers of schooling in countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Scotland, where they effectively no longer exist, the upper secondary level remains “special.” At least some of it is postcompulsory, thereby setting it outside the basic education cycle, which nowadays encompasses primary and lower secondary schooling. In some systems, such as the aforementioned, a large array of subject options opens up to students studying at this level, while in other systems students are channeled into a variety of upper secondary institutions and programs. These programs exhibit hierarchies in which science-intensive tracks routinely occupy the upper echelons; in Sri Lanka, the exclusive “Type 1AB” secondary schools offer the elite upper secondary science programs, and the “science secondary school” is at the top of the tree in the Turkish education system.