Chemical Education - A Key Factor in Facing the Challenges of the Future

With the aim of finding out if Romanian chemists are properly prepared to participate in the general effort to address the enormous challenges of the future, an analysis was performed by the Romanian Chemical Society (SChR). It emphasized some peculiar aspects of weaknesses in chemical education at various levels due to its commune origin. Among these are the chemists' difficulty in communicating with ordinary people due to both the esoteric scientific language and limited chemical knowledge of the general public; insufficient in-depth training of chemists in other sciences physics, biology, mathematics thus hindering multidisciplinary collaboration; relatively low interest of young people to study and teach chemistry; and the elimination of quantitative criteria for evaluation of scientific activity at the cost of creativity and applicability of scientific results. SChR has initiated specific activities designed to ameliorate the aforementioned weaknesses. For instance, in order to increase the attractiveness of chemistry for young people, local branches, Chemical Education and Young Chemists sections of SChR in collaboration with universities have organized interesting and challenging scientific contests for pre-college students. Topics like "Chemistry, friend or enemy?", "How is prepared?", "Experimentum", "Science Fair", "Human. Environment. Pollution" are obvious in their content and expectations.