This article by Don Watts and the other one today by John Ridd point to a very disturbing trend in Australian Schools. Science and Technology (and maths) are not the domain of a few boffins who provide all the new gizmos and then everybody else just uses them and laughs all the way to the bank. Science and Technology need to be understood by everyone in order to build the sort of society that can compete internationally and can solve the problems that we will need to solve as population increases and our environment becomes more stressed.

Our children will need to manage many, many new challenges in the next 40 years if we are going to have the relaxing retirement we dream of. Many of those challenges will involve science and technology and not just operating the gizmos, but making the political choices about stem cell research, greenhouse, water supply and energy that will need to be made.

When journalists in prominent newspapers don't know the difference between millions and billions and politicians shy away from even the most basic technical arguments because they know there is no "sound bite" to it, we have a society that will be ill prepared to make the right decisions.

I applaud the efforts of these educators in trying to improve Science and Technology education. I hope they and others with similar desires are successful because we will need to have a population well educated in science and technology if we are to be prosperous in the future. I hope there will be more detailed proposals in the media and an attempt to get science education pushed forward.

Good Luck Don Watts and John Ridd and all educators in Australia

Maths and science at the Primary level is taught very poorly because most of the teachers lack understanding or interest themselves in these subjects.I think it is about time we paid teachers of academic subjects a lot more.We will then begin to see a higher calibre of teacher.One size doesn't fit all.