A SuperCourse for Science:The View From The South

Ismail SerageldinAAAS – Boston

15 February 2008

Outline

• The World We Live In

• The Challenges Facing The South

• The Importance Of Science Education

• The Need For The SuperCourse

• A Partnership: AAAS And The Bibliotheca Alexandrina

• The Future

The World We Live In

By 1999 the knowledge sector adds more value than business sector to the GDP of

OECD Countries

3.5%

2.9%

Businesssector

Knowledgesector

Source: OECD, 1999.

Rich Countries Vs. Poor Countries

Income:

40 Times

Research:

220 Times

THE POWER OF HUMAN CAPITAL

78

69

40

60.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Researchers and Engineers per 10,000workers

JAPAN

USA

EU

China

LDCs Non-Asia

Source: European Commission, Scientific Partnership for Development, Brussels, 1998, p. 8.

Source: European Commission, Scientific Partnership for Development, Brussels, 1998, p. 37.

PCs per 10,000 Persons

1800

230

10

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

OECD MIC LIC

The enormous weakness of the schooling system on which the

university builds

But Some Developing Countries Have Performed Spectacularly Well…

The Challenges Facing The South

The Asian Tigers

From a very poor island to

• 22 million people • On 36,000 sq. kms. Of

mostly mountainous terrain

But…• Extremely wealthy

(reserves of $ 266 billion, per cap. GDP of $26,000)

• An Industrial Powerhouse!

Some of the tallest buildings in the world

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

Taiwanese companies, from chip foundry TSMC to laptop maker Quanta, produce

enormously but products are marketed under other brand names

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#1 Provider of chip foundry services, with 70% of the market worth $8.9 billion

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#1 Provider of notebook PCs, with 72% of the market worth $22 billion

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#1 Provider of LCD monitors, with 68% of the market worth $14 billion

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#2 Provider of servers, with 33% of the market worth $1.8 billion

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#2 Provider of digital still cameras, with 34% of the market worth $2 billion

Source: BusinessWeek, May 16, 2005

#1 Provider of PDAs, with 79% of the market

worth $1.8 billion

Other success stories abound

• Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India…

Different Countries, Different Strategies

• Korea 1990: top 5 companies account for 60% of exports

• Taiwan 1990: Top 60 companies account for 5% of exports

• Taiwan 1990: 25% of companies working on exports have <5 employees!

Korean Brands

Korea

• 3rd poorest country in 1955 to 11th biggest economy in 2005

• Spends more than Italy and Canada on R&D• Samsung bigger than Sony• Samsung has more advanced technology in

some sectors than Sony, Motorola or Erickson

Education: The Korean Example

Korea before 1960s

Source: DongA

ilbo

Status of Economic Growth

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

1962 1970 1996

Korea

Zimbabwe

Kenya

Employment by Industrial Sector (%)

01020304050607080

1962 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

AgricultureManufacturingService

Growth of Trade Volume (mil USD)

020000400006000080000

100000120000140000160000180000200000 Export

Import

• GDP growth: 4.9%• GDP: $730bn• Inflation: 2.5%• Population: 48.5m• GDP per head: $15,050

South Korea

Source: The Economist, Issues of 2005

Korea: “The Policies that have worked

well in the past are not necessarily the best to confront the

challenges of tomorrow…”

Phase of manpower supply

Literate and manually skilled work force

Semi-skilledwork force

Skilledwork force

Knowledgework force

Phase of economic development

TRADITIONAL INDUSTRY INDUSTRIALIZATION POST INDUSTRIALIZATION

Agriculture

Labor intensive industries

Capital intensive heavy and chemicalindustries

High technology/ knowledge intensive industries

IT,BT,CT,ET,NTServicese business

Adultliteracycampaign

Universalprimaryeducation

SaemaulUndong

Universalsecondaryeducation

Masshighereducation

Phase of education and training

“can do” spirit

1945 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Interrelationship between educational and economic development

Quantity does not mean forgetting Quality

 Korean Student’s Performance in Reading, Math and Scientific Literacy on PISA 2000

Finland 546   Japan 557   Korea 552Canada 534   Korea 547   Japan 550New Zealand 529   New Zealand 537   Finland 538

Australia 528   Finland 536   England 532Ireland 527   Australia 533  

Canada529

Korea 525   Canada 533   New Zealand 528

England 523   Switzerland 529   Australia 528Japan 522   England 529   Austria 519Sweden 516   Belgium 520   Ireland 513Belgium 507   France 517   Sweden 512Austria 507   Austria 515   Czech Rep. 511Iceland 507   Denmark 514   France 500Norway 505   Iceland 514   Norway 500France 505   Sweden 510   U.S.A 499U.S.A 504   Ireland 503   Hungary 496Denmark 497   Norway 499   Iceland 496Switzerland 494   Czech Rep. 498   Belgium 496Spain 493   U.S.A 493   Switzerland 496Czech Rep. 492   Germany 490   Spain 491Italy 487   Hungary 488   Germany 487Germany 484   Spain 476   Poland 483Hungary 480   Poland 470   Denmark 481Poland 479   Italy 457   Italy 478Greece 474   Portugal 454   Greece 461Portugal 470   Greece 447   Portugal 459Luxemburg 441   Luxemburg 446   Luxemburg 443Mexico 422   Mexico 387   Mexico 422

  Reading   Math. ScienceCountry Averag

eCountry Averag

eCountry Average

Country

4th grade 8th grade

Math. Science Math. Science

 

KoreaJapanNether landsCzech Rep.AustriaIrelandHungaryAustraliaU.S.ACanadaScotlandEnglandNorwayNew ZealandGreecePortugalIceland International Average

 

611(1)597(2)577(3)567(4)559(5)550(6)548(7)546(8)545(9)

532(10)520(11)513(12)502(13)499(14)492(15)475(16)474(17)

 537

 

597(1)574(2)557(6)557(7)565(4)

539(10)532(12)562(5)565(3)549(9)

536(11)551(8)

530(14)531(13)497(16)480(17)505(15)

 543

 

607(1)605(2)541(4)564(3)539(5)527(8)537(6)530(7)

500(13)527(9)

498(14)506(11)503(12)508(10)484(16)454(17)487(15)

 526

 

565(3)571(2)560(4)574(1)558(5)538(9)554(6)545(8)

534(10)531(11)517(14)552(7)

527(12)526(13)497(15)480(17)494(16)

 537

International Comparisons of Mathematics and Science Performance of Students in the 4th and

8th grades (1995)*

* Source : OECD(1997). Education at a Glance.

Note : Number in parenthesis is rank in each category.

Again in 2003

Source, The Economist, 10 February 2007

Again in 2003

Source, The Economist, 10 February 2007

Gross tertiary enrollment ratio

1980

Low Middle High

34

114

WDI, 1999

Gross tertiary enrollment ratio

1980

1996

Low Middle High

58

34

1511

54

WDI, 1999

Tertiary enrollment ratios

0

20

40

60

80

1965 1975 1985 1995

SS Africa

Low & Middle

High Income

Source: Task Force, 2000,

Tertiary enrollment ratios

0

20

40

60

80

1965 1975 1985 1995

SS Africa

Low & Middle

Rep. Korea

High Income

Source: Task Force, 2000,

Tertiary enrollment in technical fields

0

10

20

30

40

50

Taiwan Rep. Korea Hong Kong

Singapore OECD

WDR, 1999

The Importance Of Science Education

Thank you

Thank you

Four year effort:

Published 1996

18,000 reviewers

250 pages

The Need For The SuperCourse

The SuperCourse

• Will allow teachers to organize their own material

• To take a whole lecture or individual slides

• To tailor the lecture to his/her needs

• To stay in touch in an easy and accessible fashion with the latest in science

A Partnership: AAAS and The Bibliotheca Alexandrina

To Make The SuperCourse Work

• Build Communities of practice• Collect the best lectures• Organize them in a user-friendly way• Make them available for free• Constantly update the information

• All this will require the involvement of top-flight scientific communities of practice in various disciplines…

To Make The SuoerCourse Work

• Build Communities of practice• Collect the best lectures• Organize them in a user-friendly way• Make them available for free• Constantly update the information

• All this will require the involvement of top-flight scientific communities of practice in various disciplines…

Who better than the AAAS can help with these fascinating

tasks?

Note that they will come largely as the by-product of the

regular work of practicing lecturing scientists…

Why The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) – Egypt’s New Library Of Alexandria?

The Reborn Bibliotheca Alexandrina – The New Library Of Alexandria

Almost at the very spot of the old one, Dedicated to science, Born Digital

A symbolic Value, Yes, But much more practical reasons to choose the BA

Over a million visitors a day

Over 500 Events a year

And International Gatherings

Many Scientific Conferences

Over 750,000 day visitors annually

Thousands of Children

Over 10,000 subscribers>250,000 reader visits/yr

Websites: Over 150 million

hits per year

The New Library of Alexandria

A complex of lively institutions!

The BA has …• 7 Research Institutes• 5 specialized libraries• Internet archive• Main Library• 9 permanent exhibitions• 3 museums• ALEXploratorium• Planetarium• 6 art galleries• Conference center ……and a whole lot more!

The Internet Archive

• Holds the memory of the world

• Every publicly accessible page on the WWW

• 1996 to the present • Original in San

Francisco• Only copy is in

Alexandria

The Racks of the Petaboxes

Each Rack can take the text of 100 million books

(of 300 pages each) or 12 million formatted books

Synchronized Daily with San Francisco

An Infrastructure for Science

• Hybrid Library (25,000 journals)• Large computing capability• Analytical Center• Large Storage Devices• Large-bandwidth connectivity

Connectivity

SO…

Let’s Build A Partnership:AAAS and The Bibliotheca

Alexandrina

Teams can build huge achievements over time

And the BA in Egypt is equipping itself to compete in these Modern Times

To compete with the Asian Tigers

ChinaIndiaKoreaBrazil

Mexico& many more…

It Is the Dawn of A new Age!

It Is the Dawn of A new Age!

Let’s Embrace it!

The Future

With your help…

We will create In Egypt a Base for The Supercourse maintained by an

excellent local team

Our Team

Limited size, limited resources

The Competition

Large size, unlimited resources

But we will surprise you!

Working All Together

There is so much

we can do for a

whole generation

For The Whole World…

Thank You

The images used in this presentation are strictly for the

educational purpose of this lecture. Any use by anyone for

any other purpose should be after consulting the copyright owners

of these pictures