Chemical Educarion in Asai-Pacific
It is my great pleasure to be able to publish a new book "Chemical Education in Asia-Pacific" at the opportune moment of opening the 7th Asian Chemical Congress held in Hiroshima, Japan. First of all I would like to express my sincere thanks to the editors, Prof. Yoshito Takeuchi and Prof. Masato M. Ito, for their invaluable effort toward the production of this book. I also wish to thank all the authors that have contributed to this book for their kind cooperation.
Japan has started new programs to promote scientific and technical development aiming at the contribution to the welfare of all mankind and to realization of the better lives in future. This new movement in Japan is attributed to the new basic law to promote science and technology, which passed the Diet of Japan in late 1995, and to a five year plan made successively by the government for supporting basic research (see C&E News, Sept. 9. 1996). We were pleased to stress that Chemical Society of Japan contributed to establish this new law.
About 120 years ago, the modernization of Japanese society was undertaken through catching up with the developed countries of the West. Japan had imported and adopted advanced foreign technology and educational systems. The success of this modernization owed a great deal to the good leaders who understood the importance of nurturing human resources. After World War II, Japan had made miraculous reconstruction and became a highly industrialized country. This change was performed by the effort of many excellent scientists and engineers. Such valuable experience taught us the importance of education for development of human resources with high intelligence. Japan is now changing universities as the higher education system in order to nurture human resources with creative minds, required for the 21st century, who can contribute to the field of basic science and technology.
In the field of chemistry, Chemical Society of Japan has made various efforts to undertake excellent education in science. In April this year, we newly established CSJ Council of Chemical Education, which is supported by the whole body of Chemical Society of Japan to promote better chemical education for high school students. Prof. Akio Yamamoto, a former president, was elected as the first chairman of the Council. We expect that the Council has got executive power not only to the government but also to the societies in other fields for providing excellent education.
This book has been published through cooperation of editors and authors from many Asian countries. I hope that this book will contribute a lot to development of education in Asia. Finally, we wish to acknowledge a financial support from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan.
May, 1997
Noboru Sonoda
President
The Chemical Society of Japan
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Chemical education in the Asia and Pacific regions is in a cross-road. As the close of the century approaches, new concerns and new technologies have emerge which are relevant to the teaching of chemistry. Several countries in the region are conscious of the need to cope up with new developments and to improve the quality of chemical education. Economic and cultural factors have posed some limitations to the effort towards the upgrading of the teaching of chemistry.
The Federation of Asian Chemical Societies has initiated the Asian Chemical Education Network to facilitate the development of chemical education in the region. It has recognized the virtues of collaboration and cooperation in moving forward the quality of chemical education in the different member countries. It has accepted the experiences in other areas of chemistry wherein success has been attained through networking.
This book on "Chemical Education in Asia/Pacific" provides a good baseline material for the Asian Chemical Education Network. It documents the history, the status and the structure of chemical education in most of the Asia Pacific countries. It provides a useful sourcebook of the experiences of different Asia/Pacific countries in their effort towards quality education in chemistry.
As the editors have pointed out, this book is an off-shoot of a volume on "Chemical Education in Japan". We appreciate their initiative to extend their effort to include the rest of the Asia/Pacific region. Their leadership in the documentation of chemical education in our region has produced an important reference material. The electronic version of this book in the Internet is definitely a laudable project, making the information contained in it more accessible to a greater number of people.
May, 1997
Fortunato Sevilla III
President
The Federation of Asian Chemical Societies
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The Committee for the Promotion of Chemical Education, the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ) published a book "Chemical Education in Japan (2nd version ) " (150 pp, A4) with the aid of grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Education (Monbusho), Japan in summer, 1994. Formally the book is the revised version of the booklet with the same title published in 1978. The material for the new version is all new, and it covers the past, present and future prospect of chemical education (not only tertiary, but also primary and secondary (chemistry part of) science education). The new version will be the only source book of chemical education in Japan written in English for coming ten years or so.
"Chemical Education in Japan (2nd version ) " was warmly welcome by chemical educators from all over the world. We felt some stimulus with this success; it would be even better if a sister book, "Chemical Education in Asia/Pacific" does exist. We made up our mind to prepare such one. Though a great difficulty is envisaged for such a project, we could intiate the project in May, 1995, promoted by a good luck. Firstly the Monbusho offered us a grant which will nearly cover the cost of publication. Secondly, the Executive Committee, the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS) approved this as the CSJ-FACS joint project.
Immediately we sent a letter of invitation to 23 FACS member societies (CSJ was excluded since it has its own already), to which most societies positively responded. Indeed, we could receive 17 contributions. The "yield" is very much higher than what we initially anticipated.
Everyone will admit that the date of the publication of "Chemical Education in Asia/Pacific" is very timely in that it coincides with the opening of the 7th Asian Chemical Congress held in Hiroshima, Japan. As a matter of fact this is our intention to make the two dates coincide. This is the reason why we are justified to ask authors to complete their contributions by the deadline, and this is also the reason why authors are ready to admit our push.
We want to stress our intention that the publication of this book is not the goal of our project, but its beginning. As the whole text (including tables and figures) of "Chemical Education in Japan (2nd version)" are now accessible to anyone via internet-www (http://www.t.soka.ac.jp/chem/CEJ2), the whole content of "Chemical Education in Asia/Pacific" is also now being converted into html form to be read via internet. You notice a few countries for some reason or other failed to contribute a chapter to this book. Such countries have an opportunity to contribute a chapter via internet. Indeed, the files of the two books will be the core of Asian Chemical Education Network (ACEN) sponsored by FACS. The final goal of our project, if such does exist, will be the establishment of World-wide Chemical Education Network (WOCEN). This has in fact been initiated with the agreement of the Committee on Teaching of Chemistry (CTC), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
Finally we like to express our sincere thanks to authors, Monbusho, CSJ, FACS and especially the members of the Working Party for the International Relations, the Committee on Promotion of Chemical Education, CSJ, for their generous cooperation and support.
May , 1997
Prof. Yoshito Takeuchi
Department of Chemistry
Faculty of Science
Kanagawa University, Japan
Prof. Masato M. Ito
Department of Bioengineering
Faculty of Engineering
Soka University, Japan
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THE WORKING GROUP FOR THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS;
THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PROMOTION OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION,
THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN
Yoshito Takeuchi (Kanagawa University) (Chairperson)
Haruo Hosoya (Ochanomizu University)
Masato M. Ito (Soka University)
John T. Shimozawa (Saitama University)
Koa Tasaka (International Christian University)
Kuniaki Tatsuta (Waseda University)
Toru Tuchiya (Tokyo Metropolitan Joto Upper Secondary School)
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We would like to thank the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (Monbu-sho).for a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Kaken-hi) without whose kind help the publication of this book would have been quite difficult.
We would also like to thank the Chemical Society of Japan for giving us an opportunity to accomplish this interesting attempt.
Special thanks are due to Federation of Asian Chemical Societies(FACS), for giving us authorization to promote this project under the support of FACS. Without this authorization, we must have had a hard time to persuade authors to spend such a large amount of time energy for preparing a chapter for this book.
We also like to thank contributors who have spent so much time and energy in discussing the policy and plot of the intended book, in collecting necessary information and finally in taking the time to write their share in the added complexity of a foreign language(for most authors).
We thank Miss Miho Ishii and Miss Hisako Ichihara for valuable assistance in editing the manuscript and processing numerous graphic data.
Finally, we like to extend our sincere thanks to the members of the Working Group for the International Relations , the Committee for the Promotion of Chemical Education (After April 1997, the Subcommittee for the International Relations, the Council of Chemical Education), the Chemical Society of Japan. This project will not be completed without the cooperation of the group. The list of the members are given above.
Co-editor Yoshito TAKEUCHI
Co-editor Masato M. ITO
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FOREWORD
FOREWORD
FOREWORD BY THE EDITORS
LIST of CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
CONTENTS
Nation/Region |
Author(s) |
| Bangladesh | S. Z. Haider |
| China | Hua Tongwen, Wu Yongxing, Li Wending, Han Jiaxun, Chen Zufu, Zhang Jianru, Hu Meiling, and Wang Yue |
| Hong Kong | Lo Mun Ling |
| India | Dulal Chandra Mukherjee |
| Jordan | Fawwaz Khalili |
| Korea | Taehee Noh, Inok Han, Kyu Whan Woo, and Sukjin Kang |
| Kuwait | Yousuf Yacoub Al-Sultan, Najat Al-Shatti, and Salwa Abdulla Al-Jassar |
| Malaysia | Ting Kueh Soon |
| Nepal | Mohan Singh Khadka |
| New Zealand | Janet Burns |
| Pakistan | Zafar H. Zaidi and M. A. Rahman |
| The Philippines | Ma. Cristina D. Padolina and Marcelita C. Magno |
| Singapore | Lawrence H. L. Chia |
| Taiwan | Tai-Shan Fang |
| Fiji, South Pacific | Bill Aalbersberg |
| Sri Lanka | J. N. Oleap Fernando |
| Vietnam | Nguyen Huu Dung and Nguyen Cuong |
| (Appendix) | Masato M. Ito |
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