Scientifically and Technologically Literate Societies

The 2006 Education for All Global Monitoring Report focuses on literacy. It emphasizes that nations must strive not only for universal individual literacy, but to become literate societies.

In previous postings and comments (Click on the SandT literacy tag at the end of this posting to see them all.) this blog has explored scientific and technological literacy for individuals. The discussion made the point that there is a basic core of skills and knowledge about the natural, social and man-made environment that can be considered as defining the standard of individual S&T literacy. That standard will include the literacy necessary for the person's economic, political, familial, and other roles in society. It will differ from group to group within a single nation, as people in rural environments need to know different things than those in urban environments. People living in Alaska need to know different things than those in Hawaii or Maryland!

I suggest further that the standards of S&T literacy should differ from country to country. This is true since different nations have different cultures, social institutions, and natural environments. It is also true in that the economic level of a nation relates to the technology it uses, and thus in the core of technological knowledge its citizens should possess.

The standard of literacy should also depend on what is socially and economically possible. I see little advantage in setting a standard of individual S&T literacy that only a few if any citizens can actually achieve. Literacy as an objective should be reachable, not pie in the sky.

Similarly, the individual standard of literacy should not only change as the physical, social and man-made environment changes, it should be raised as levels of realistic aspirations rise!

S&T Literacy for Societies

Many previous postings have made the point that there is a false analogy between an individuals skills and knowledge and those of an organization or a society. The members of a society obviously command more knowledge collectively than any member does individually. Moreover, people specialize. Farmers know more about farming, healers know more about healing, teachers (should) know more about teaching.

I have pointed out that an organization or a society can "learn" in the sense of improving performance through information-based efforts, simply by bringing the knowledge its members already have more effectively to bear on the problems it faces.

There is an old joke, that heaven like a celestial hotel where
the French do the cooking, the Germans run the cleaning staff,
and the English the administration. Hell, on the other hand is
an infernal hotel where the English do the cooking, the French
the cleaning, and the Germans run the place.

Based on the premises described above, a society should set itself a standard of scientific and technological literacy such that it has the knowledge it can afford organized in such a way to effectively manage its affairs and approach the problems it faces.

I would think that one aspect of a scientifically and technologically literate society is that its members would have attained acceptable levels of individual scientific and technological literacy.
However, no society will understand its own natural, social and man-made environment, nor have the skills to manage and solve problems without geologists and meteorologists, economists and management scientists, engineers and public health experts. The standards of literacy for a society should include the numbers of members in these learned professions and their levels of preparation, as well as the standards for placement of these professionals where their knowledge can be brought to bear for the benefit of the society.

If a nation were really to set itself standards for scientific and technological literacy as a nation, they would be quite complex. Nations might, however, allocate their financial, institutional and human resources better were they to do so!