Asia Pacific science education in a knowledge society

Science education, since the end of the nineteenth century has been a formal vehicle to ensure the perpetuation of scientific knowledge necessary for general scientific literacy and the creation of a society of scientists. However, since then, beliefs about knowledge and knowing have changed from science being described as being just a pile of chronologically documented facts, through the dynamic growth of scientific knowledge as explained by Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to the present twenty-first century concept of knowledge societies by which new scientific knowledge is being interpreted. Science education perspectives in relation to teacher education and pedagogies need to be frequently revisited. Indeed, many nations in the Asia-Pacific region are doing just that. How then is the teaching and learning of scientific knowledge in the region? This article will review and compare research related to science achievement, quality of science education and approaches to teaching science in the Asia-Pacific region in particular five nations, in an attempt to answer this question.