PUPILS’ INTEREST TO ACQUIRE NATURAL SCIENCE SUBJECTS

Natural science education has been much discussed. It is important; however, it is difficult to be attained for many pupils. One of the most essential problems is pupils' low interest about natural science; especially, about physics and chemistry, and learning without interest cannot be productive. Some 20 years ago Latvia started to pay attention to studies in didactics of natural sciences when the reform of general state education system began. Rather radical changes in the content of natural science subjects and teaching methods were introduced in order to facilitate successful acquisition of these subjects. During the time period from 2003 till 2013 pupils have been surveyed to find out their interest about natural science. The comparison of the study results obtained in 2003, 2008 and 2013 shows that actually pupils' interest about natural science has not changed. Thus, despite radical improvements in the teaching process where special attention was paid to increasing the pupils' learning motivation the pupils' interest about acquiring the natural science subjects (physics, chemistry and biology) has to risen. Such a result makes us think that school is unable to influence sufficiently pupils' learning. The influence of other factors that have not yet been found out most likely exerts a much stronger influence. One of the measures to be taken to achieve greater interest about the natural science subjects is an examination. It is envisaged to introduce the compulsory secondary school graduation examination in chemistry or physics.