30 Sep 2008

Science not popular at primary school

5:06 pm on 30 September 2008

Primary school children are increasingly being turned off science.

Results from a national education monitoring project show 37% of students in their last year of primary school actively dislike the subject.

The results show the percentage of Year 8 students disliking science increased substantially over eight years from 15%. Only 5% would like to be scientists.

The decline is attributed partly to a failure of school science programmes to provide the activities, such as practical experiments, that children particularly enjoy.