Philippines: The Value of Science Education

Reaction Paper: What good is science education There are two points in the article of Ramon Suarez that are of essentiality for the people, especially those lawmakers and advocates for goodness (in terms of quality of life) through the efficient involvement of industry and technology, to realize; one of which is that popular cultures do not manifest the entirety of what is to be learned as science. Based on the written account by Mr. Antonio Batomalaque (PROBE- Science Facilitator), the educational system in the Philippines implements a reviewed elementary curriculum but it is far too overcrowded to effectively utilize learning specially in the field of science. Moreover, I also experienced during my elementary days the struggle of just memorizing facts which I did not comprehend until I almost failed on my practical during high school. The context of memorization being a forceful way of learning is apparently surfacing for a reason that “understanding” and “knowing” might come blurry with time in this method. Another, the political system and communication media play a major role in imparting scientific literacy on people, and they obviously failed to prove its certainty to the Philippines. Clearly, when they shut down BT Talong and froze all researches in UPLB, they also jeopardized Philippine Science because the issue went national and all what people can hear now is that GMOs can affect them negatively. As said by Mr. Purunggan, Dean of Science at New York University, even if various science academies and societies were questioned, they would all conclude GMOs are safe. The second point is that scientific knowledge roots from critical thinking. Approving ideas and materializing decisions should not come into matter as a mean of adaptation; they should all be well thought out and challenged. There is no actual answer on how good our science education is because like history literacy is subjective and it only needs to be important on one group for it to have