A Proposal to FACS(Federation of Asian Chemical Societies) EXCO(Executive Committee)

"Chemical Education in Asia"

May 27, 1995

The purpose of this attempt is to prepare a book that can be a good source book in all aspects of chemical(science) education of Asian countries in which ACC comprises.

Such an attempt requires a tremendous amount of energy, time and money. What is proposed here is to prepare a preliminary version of more perfect and comprehensive attempt within a reasonable amount of energy, time and money. Fortunately I get a promise from the Ministry of Education, Japan to the effect that if such an attempt is realized I shall be able to have a small amount of money which covers minimum necessary expenses.

Many years ago Royal Society of Chemistry (then the Chemical Society) published a booklet "Chemical Education in Europe" which has since been the only dependable source book in this field. Last year the Chemical Society of Japan published a booklet "Chemical Education in Japan" with a good success. What is proposed here is in a word an Asian version of the European and Japanese counterparts. The following is the details of the proposal.

  1. "Chemical Education in Japan(2nd version)"

    The Chemical Society of Japan published a booklet(A4, ca 150 pages) Chemical Society of Japan(2nd version)(editor; Yoshito Takeuchi). The book was distributed among active chemical educators of the world and got a good reputation.

  2. "Chemical Education in Asia"

    It occurred to me that with this experience if we could make a book covering the chemical education in Asia in general, such can be a good source book for the subject. To the best of my knowledge such has not been published.

  3. Procedure

    If authorization from ACC EXCO is obtained, I shall write the contact persons of each of our member societies to ask to choose an appropriate person who would write a chapter for the book. I expect 10 to 20 printed pages for each country. If all 24 countries contribute in full, the book will be over 500 pages. I suspect, however, the number of contributing countries would be less than 24.

    The contribution must be made as a set of a hard-copy and floppy disc. I prefer Macintosh though all MS-DOS files can be converted.

  4. Structure

    I expect that in each chapter the present educational system with some statistics together with future prospect concerning chemical education will be described. In a word, each chapter is a miniature of "Chemical Education in Japan(2nd version)". A copy was handed to all delegates who attended the General Assembly. A copy will be sent to countries whose delegates were absent.

  5. Publication

    The contributing manuscripts should be submitted to me by the end of August, 1996. Some editing would be inevitable so that the various chapters can be unified into a book. I shall ask a native speaker(writer) who lives in Japan to act as the consultant.

    The chapters will be printed in a booklet similar to "Chemical Education in Japan(2nd version)" by the end of April 1997 so that this can be distributed on occasion of 7th ACC(whether the book can be distributed free among all participants depend on the fund). Each contributing country will receive at least 10 free copies at Hiroshima(cost of mailing from Japan is expensive and formidable).

    The price (when for sale)should be kept minimum; just enough to cover the cost of printing and mailing. I have no intention to make any profit out of this project. I cannot say, however, anything about the price at the moment since the price will depend on the number of pages and on the fund I can obtain. As you notice, I distributed Chemical Education in Japan free. The only trouble of this free distribution is that when the stock is out, it is difficult to reprint it. It is extremely difficult to get grant for reprinting.

  6. Gratis

    I am planning to pay some gratis to authors. I believe 100 - 300 US$ can be payable depending on the number of pages and the quality of contributed chapters. The amount again will be affected by the amount of grant I can obtain. There will be some restriction in the way of payment since the money is from the government. I can pay only in Yen at Hiroshima.

  7. A Seed for Asian Chemical Education Network The combined contributions can be the starting point for the proposed Asian Chemical Education Network. I believe not only I but also all the contributors are happy if the combined manuscripts become the seed for the network. The intended book "Chemical Society of Asia" is one of the aims the Network should be directed to. Hopefully each chapter is to be up-dated and enlarged every year or every two years.

This is the brief outline of my proposal. I think the explanation is clear enough. If, however, there is any ambiguity, please contact me by mail or fax. I shall reply immediately.

	Prof. Yoshito Takeuchi
	Department of Chemistry
	Faculty of Science
	Kanagawa University
	2946 Tsuchiya, Hiratsuka, Japan 259-12 
	Tel.         +81 463 59 4111 ext. 2842
	Fax         +81 463 58 9684
	Tel          +81 3 3941 1968(home)
	Fax         +81 3 3946 0861(home)
	E-mail yoshito@info.kanagawa-u.ac.jp

Editor-in-Chief, "Chemistry and Education"(monthly journal
            published by the Chemical Society of Japan")
Convenor, The International Relations Working Group, the
            Committee for the Promotion of Chemical Education,  the
            Chemical Society of Japan"
National Representative, CTC(Committee on Teaching of 	Chemistry),
            IUPAC(International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry)
Convenor, Symposium on Chemical Education, 7th ACC(Asian 
            Chemical Congress)
General Secretary, 7th ACC(Asian Chemical Congress)

yoshito@info.kanagawa-u.ac.jp