Science Education in India: A Misnomer for Scientific Temper

Abstract

Indians being ‘argumentative’ can even justify the indefensible and the conventional scientific logic and rationality appear amorphous and adjustable to us, which can be tailored to justify our firmly held superstitious beliefs and obscurantist practices. Scientific temper is a requisite to evolve an ‘Ask why’ society to sustain and reinvigorate the Indian democracy, which needs to be re-understood in the context of popular culture and pedagogical practices of science education. In this article, we tend to problematize what is scientific temper? Why scientific temper continues to elude us despite being part of our constitutional fundamental duty and framework. The aim is to negotiate with the idea of science as understood by Indians, while simultaneously deconstructing the idea of Indian science. The article will also explore the pedagogical concerns of science education in India. The penultimate question would be about the possibility of evolving scientific temper with the contemporary science education policies and system. The paper attempts to analyze how science education in Indian classroom settings continues to evade evolvement of scientific temper.