Education For All (EFA) is a global movement led by UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization),
aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by
2015.
EFA was adopted by The Dakar Framework in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in Senegal, Africa, with the goal in mind that all children would receive primary education by 2015.Not all children receive the education they need or want, therefore this goal was put in place to help those children.
UNESCO
has been mandated to lead the movement and coordinate the international
efforts to reach Education for All. Governments, development agencies,
civil society, non-government organizations and the media are but some
of the partners working toward reaching these goals.
The EFA goals also contribute to the global pursuit of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG 2 on universal primary education and MDG 3 on gender equality in education, by 2015.
The Fast Track Initiative
(now called Global Partnership for Education) was set up to implement
the EFA movement, aiming at "accelerating progress towards quality
universal primary education".
UNESCO also produces the annual Global Education Monitoring Report.
UNESCO
UNESCO works with others around the world to reach a mutual understanding for everyone to work well together.
UNESCO coordinates international cooperation, which allows access to
education, grow and live in a diverse community, learn from advancements
in technology, and freedom of expression. This cooperation allows
UNESCO to work with others to create opportunities for children and
other citizens around the world. Goals are created to provide all
children with an elementary education, which is important to some
families. Educational programs are also created through the cooperation.
Audrey Azoulay
was elected as the Director-General on November 15, 2017 for a
four-year term. Azoulay has priorities in place and one of the highest
ones is education. Working with others will allow education programs to
spread globally. Azoulay is working hard to make sure all these goals
and cooperation are kept in line to help better the present and future
for children and other citizens.
She believes that these issues faced by countries cannot be met by one
country alone; therefore working with different countries will make it
more possible to solve these issues and meet goals.
Partnerships
Partnerships
are what helps UNESCO fix global challenges. These partnerships are
managed very carefully to reassure that the goals set in place are met.
UNESCO works in different ways with their partnerships such as
collaboration, volunteers, advocacy, and consultations. By having these
different ways of working with others, UNESCO is able to have many
partnerships and have them globally. UNESCO's partners range from individuals to institutions all around the world. Some of them are governments, Private Sector companies, Goodwill Ambassadors, media organizations, corporate and philanthropic foundations, parliamentarians, the wider UN family, other intergovernmental organizations, specialized networks in UNESCO, and NGOs.
UNESCO offers many entry levels for partnerships, which are
organizations that have leadership and goals/priorities set in place to
achieve. Some examples of those are education, natural sciences,
oceans, social and human sciences, culture, communication and
information, priority Africa, and crisis and transition.
Education is the top priority for UNESCO and they are working with EFA
to create better education for all children and adults. The problem
that comes from this is that every country is different and that
reflects achieving these education goals. Countries differ in the
quality of education due to economics and culture. This is where is a
great need to strengthen finances, resources, and technology.
Technology is booming in this time, and that has an effect on how much
education students have access to globally. Therefore, those areas need to be strengthened to ensure that education is top priority going into the future.
World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, 2000)
In 2000, ten years later, the international community met again at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal,
an event which drew 1100 participants. The forum took stock of the fact
that many countries were far from having reached the goals established
at the World Conference on Education for All in 1990. The participants
agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action which re-affirmed their
commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015, and
identified six key measurable education goals which aim to meet the
learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. In addition,
the forum reaffirmed UNESCO's role as the lead organization with the
overall responsibility of coordinating other agencies and organizations
in the attempts to achieve these goals. The six goals established in The
Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting Our Collective
Commitments are:
Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
Goal 6: Improve the quality of education
In order to evaluate each country's progress with regards to the
EFA's goals set in the Dakar Framework for Action, UNESCO has developed
the Education for All Development Index (EDI). The EDI measures four of
the six EFA goals, selected on the basis of data availability. Each of
the four goals is evaluated using a specific indicator, and each of
those components is then assigned equal weight in the overall index.
The EDI value for a given country is thus the arithmetic mean of
the four indicators. Since they are all expressed as percentages, the
EDI value can vary from 0 to 100% or, when expressed as a ratio, from 0
to 1. The higher the EDI value, the closer the country is to achieving
Education For All as a whole.
The four goals measured in the EDI and their corresponding indicators are:
Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education - The
indicator selected to measure progress towards this goal is the total
primary net enrolment ratio (NER), which measures the percentage of
primary-school-age children who are enrolled in either primary or
secondary school. Its value varies from 0 to 100%. Therefore, a NER of
100% means that all eligible children are enrolled in school.
Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 percent - Although existing
data on literacy are not entirely satisfactory, the adult literacy rate
for those aged 15 and above is used here as a proxy to measure progress.
Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015: The
indicator selected to measure progress towards this goal is the
gender-specific EFA index, the GEI, which is itself a simple average of
the three gender parity indexes (GPI) for primary education, secondary
education and adult literacy, with each being weighted equally.
Therefore, it encompasses the two sub-goals of the original EFA goal:
gender parity (achieving equal participation of girls and boys in
primary and secondary education) and gender equality (ensuring that
educational equality exists between boys and girls) proxied by the GPI
for adult literacy
Goal 6: Improve the quality of education - The survival rate to
Grade 5 was selected for as being the best available proxy for assessing
the quality component of EDI, as comparable data are available for a
large number of countries.
The EFA Global Monitoring Report
published annually by UNESCO tracks progress on the six education
goals. The 2015 review indicates that only a third of countries reached
all the goals with measurable targets.
Education for All 2000-2015 Improve the quality of education
EFA and Inclusion
Inclusion
is a main component that is used with EFA. Since EFA is a global
movement all children are involved: different cultures, religions,
disabilities, and more. The problem that is faced with inclusion is how
different countries define disability.
To be more specific the problem comes with the definition of special
needs. This can affect how or if those students can meet the goals that
are created. To make sure all children are included schools
collaborate to see how all the children can meet the certain goals
given. This area may be a challenging one for some and it comes down to what does the term "all" really mean in Education For All?
That is an answer that will vary country to country and every where
around the world. There have been predictions that by the year 2025 the
number of children with disabilities will have risen. A majority of
that number will be children in developing countries. Therefore,
answers are needed on how to include all children in the learning and
educational goals set. Similar to technology in schools, inclusion can grow and become more common in schools.
Meeting Goals
These
goals set by the EFA were not able to be met by all. Some countries
were unable to meet these goals due to conflict in the area. Conflicts can cause destruction and prevent children from even going to school or learning from home.
There was a fear that certain countries would not be able to gain
access to certain technology and support to meet these goals.
Technology is a problem that countries run into with trying to improve
education for children and even adults. As technology advances it is
becoming a bigger key component in some schools. Depending on some
areas technology is the central focus point to help students learn. In
other areas that may not be the case. If technology keeps advancing
that may have different affects on countries. Some may not be able to
keep up with the advances and other may be able to keep up. This all
goes back to financial stability and economics in each country. One of
UNESCO's partners, World Bank worked with the countries that were most
likely not going to meet the goals by the deadline (2015). World Bank provided these countries with support and in return they would get certain policy reforms.
This allows countries to receive support to help achieve the
educational goals. This can be helpful for countries that are less
fortunate in financial and economic stability. Some of these countries
that struggled were in East Africa: Kenya and Tanzania.
When all the countries in East Africa had declared independence, then
education became the priority for all. The problem became that those
countries struggled with educational on literacy challenges.
Recent UNESCO Updates
UNESCO
revealed in its 2017 Global Education Monitoring Report that around 264
million youngsters do not attend school. An additional $39 billion is
needed annually to enhance the quality of schools worldwide. This will
provide 2.2 billion children globally equal access to learning. At
present, only 83 percent of students who attend school are able to
finish elementary education and a low of 45 percent of kids 15 up to 17
years old complete the secondary level. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova stated in an official statement that "Education is a shared responsibility between us all: governments, schools, teachers, parents and private actors." Accountability describes how mentors teach, students learn, and bureaucracies take action.
The World Bank said in 2017 that millions of learners from different
parts of the world in underdeveloped and developing nations are
confronted with problems of lost opportunities and low wages since
primary as well as secondary schools fail in educating these students
properly.
Adjusted gender parity index for selected gross enrolment ratios and literacy rates, 1990–2017
Gender parity
Over the past 25 years, substantial progress has been made towards achieving gender parity in efforts to improve girls’ education, including policies and programmes aimed at changing social attitudes, providing financial support to female students and making schools more accessible.
The fifth goal of the Education for All programme envisaged achieving
parity by 2005, a target that was missed; however, continuous progress
was made throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with the result that parity was
reached in 2009 in primary and secondary education and had almost been achieved in youth literacy by 2016. Gender disparity to the disadvantage of females remained in adult literacy, where 63% of illiterate adults are female. And in tertiary education,
gender disparity flipped to the disadvantage of males: As early as
2004, men became less likely than women to participate at the tertiary
level.
At the University of Oslo, there is no tuition fee except a small semester fee of NOK(600) (US$74). From 2013 in Northern Europe, Estonia started providing free higher education as well. Sweden,
until the early 21st century, provided free education to foreign
students but changes have been introduced to charge fees to foreign
students from outside the European community. Denmark also has universal free education, and provides a monthly stipend, the "Statens Uddannelsesstøtte" or "SU", to students over 18 years of age or students who are under 18 and attending a higher education.
Bachelor and master's degree programmes in Denmark are offered in
either Danish or English depending on the programme or university. Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Lebanon, Turkey and Uruguay provide free education at all levels, including college and university for its citizens.
Countries
In Argentina,
education is free since 1949 in every public university, not only for
Argentine students, but also for international students willing to study
in Argentina. Free education is financed by the Ministry of Education.
In Brazil,
free education is offered by the Ministry of Education, which offers
scholarships for graduate degrees, masters, doctoral and post-doctoral
for Brazilians and immigrants who have Brazilian citizenship. The best
universities and research centers are public institutions, financed by
either the local state (state universities) or the federal government
(federal universities). Graduate students can get paid if they qualify
for the incentive but competition is extremely fierce. There has been a
proliferation in the last 10 years of private universities which are
interested in providing professional training to their undergraduates.
These private colleges are not interested in nurturing research centers,
since it is not part of their business model to get involved with
research.
In European countries such as France and Malta, tuition is usually free for European students, and in Germany, tuition is free for all European and international students. In Scotland,
university tuition is free for all Scottish nationals and is discounted
for all European students, except from students coming from other parts
of the United Kingdom.
In Fiji
the government announced in 2013 it would cover the costs of primary
and secondary school education, equivalent to 250 Fiji dollars per year
per student.
In Iran,
most prestigious universities are called governmental universities
which offer free education for students who pass a very competitive
entrance exam with high scores. Graduates from these universities are
obliged to serve the country for as many years as they studied for their
degree, in order to get their diploma.
In Mauritius,
the government provides free education to its citizens from pre-primary
to tertiary levels. Since July 2005, the government also introduced
free transport for all students.
In New Zealand,
the Labour government will introduce three years of free post-school
study or training. From January 1, 2018, new students will have one year
free for entering study or training. From 2021, those starting tertiary
education would get two years free, and from 2024 three years. The
overall cost of the package is $6 billion. Labour has also pledged to
increase student allowances by $50 a week, and to restore post-graduate
students' eligibility for student allowances.
In Russia,
prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union, tuition was free for
everyone obtaining sufficient grades. Since 1991, if a student obtains
sufficient grades, he or she is still eligible for a free education (on a
competitive basis) in state or private universities, but he/she can
also pay for studying if grades are above minimal threshold, but not
enough to be enrolled into desired university for free.
In Sri Lanka, free education is provided by the government at different levels. Government funded schools such as national schools, provincial schools and Piriven
provided primary and secondary education free, while assisted schools
and semi-governmental schools provided the same at subsidized rates. At
the university level, the universities provide undergraduate courses
free, however, this totals only about 10% for those qualified for
university entrance. Grants and scholarships are provided for a limited
number of study allowances. Hon. C. W. W. Kannangara
who was the Minister of Education made education free for all Sri
Lankan students in 1940 s. Kannangara's significant achievements in
areas of education have led him to being commonly referred to as the Father of Free Education in Sri Lanka.
Therefore we have to improve and provide free educationfor poor childrenup to 12 years in formal schools.
Non-formal education, then, should play a greater role in secondary and
higher education. What I would like to achieve is to see our
educational system assist people to be able to cope with social and
economic problems and progress
There are examples of steps towards free education being taken
across the world primarily in those nations developing rapidly, such as China.
Trinidad and Tobago
offers free tertiary education to its citizens up to the undergraduate
level at accredited public and select private institutions. Postgraduate
degrees are paid up to 50% by the government at accredited
institutions. This benefit is given to the citizens under a programme
called Government Assisted Tuition Expenses Programme and it is managed
by the Funding and Grants Administration Division of the Ministry of
Tertiary Education and Skills Training
In the United States,
students pay tuition to attend community colleges, with many taking on
debt in the form of federal loans i.e. "student loans". There are still
some universities in the United States that have free education such as
the City University of New York, or CUNY, and State University of New
York, or SUNY.
Free education has long been identified with "sponsored education". This may now evoke images of advertising campaigns, but in the past, especially during the Renaissance, a rich dignitary might commonly sponsor the education of a young man as his patron.
Thomas Jefferson proposed "establishing free schools to teach
reading, writing, and arithmetic, and from these schools those of
intellectual ability, regardless of background or economic status, would
receive a college education paid for by the state."
In the United States, Townsend Harris founded the first free public institution of higher education, the Free Academy of the City of New York (today the City College of New York),
in 1847; it aimed to provide free education to the urban poor,
immigrants and their children. Its graduates went on to receive 10 Nobel
Prizes, more than any other public university. During the late 19th century, the United States government introduced compulsory education as free or universal education, which extended across the country by the 1920s.
In 1944 U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Serviceman's Readjustment Act, also known as the GI Bill of Rights, into law. The GI Bill allowed World War II veterans to attend universities at no cost to them.
A report regarding free higher education was prepared by
President Truman in 1947, however, no action was taken, according to
what was written in the report. Therefore, it never became a reality.
One possible reason could be the ongoing Cold War at that time, which
made President Truman shift his focus from the report to the war-defense
spending.
With the start of many free internet-based learning institutions such as edX (founded in 2012) and MITx (announced in 2011), anyone in the world with Internet access can take free education-courses. In many countries, the policy for the merit system has not yet caught up with these recent advances in education technology.
After the 2011–13 Chilean student protests, tuition-free college was a major campaign promise of Chilean president Michelle Bachelet in 2013. After some years marshaling support and funding, the gratuidad
law was passed in 2018, and as of 2019 covers tuition at participating
schools for families in the bottom 60% of earnings nation-wide.
On the Internet
Online education has become an option in recent years, particularly with the development of free MOOCs (massive open online courses) from providers such as Khan Academy (High School) and Higher Education, through providers such as edX, Coursera, Udacity, FutureLearn and Alison.
Free education has become available through several websites with some
resembling the courses of study of accredited universities. Online
education faces barriers such as institutional adoption, license or
copyright restrictions, incompatibility and educator awareness of
available resources.
Due to the extensive requirements of resources for online
education, many open community projects have been initiated.
Specifically, the Wikimedia Foundation has developed a project devoted to free online educational resources, Wikiversity, and recently, several other sites for specific topics have developed.
Christian Leaders Institute
offers tuition free college level ministry education. Students can take
any classes free of charge, but are encouraged to help support the
mission of the institution by making donations to this 501 (c)3 United States Charity.
The Islamic Online University (IOU), a distance-learning
higher education institution, offers tuition-free graduate and
undergraduate degrees. A very modest registration fee is charged per
semester, which is based on the human development index and thus varies from country to country. The IOU is offering one million scholarships for African youths by 2020.
Nidahas Vidyalaya has started an initiative named Freedom College towards providing tuition-free education in Sri Lanka.
Other examples
Many
students do not attend college because they cannot afford it. A study
shows that eligible and skilled students who are worried about the
increasing cost of college are 12 to 16 times more likely to quit
college.
Free education does not only take the form of publicly funded institutions like state universities.
In Iran, Nasra is a movement aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults in 2018. This social movement focuses on digital media use and mental health and increase the skills of using the media for the public.
The NSF's director and deputy director are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, whereas the 24 president-appointed members of the National Science Board (NSB)
do not require Senate confirmation. The director and deputy director
are responsible for administration, planning, budgeting and day-to-day
operations of the foundation, while the NSB meets six times a year to
establish its overall policies. The current NSF director is Sethuraman Panchanathan.
History and mission
The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950.
Its stated mission is "To promote the progress of science; to advance
the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national
defense."
The NSF's scope has expanded over the years to include many areas that
were not in its initial portfolio, including the social and behavioral
sciences, engineering, and science and mathematics education. The NSF is
the only U.S. federal agency with a mandate to support all non-medical fields of research.
Budget and performance history
Since the technology boom of the 1980s, Congress has generally embraced the premise that government-funded basic research
is essential for the nation's economic health and global
competitiveness, and for national defense. That support is manifested in
an expanding budget—from $1 billion in 1983 to $8.28 billion for FY
2020. NSF has published annual reports since 1950, which since the new
millennium have been two reports, variously called Performance Report
and Accountability Report or Performance Highlights and Financial
Highlights; the latest available FY 2013 Agency Financial Report was
posted December 16, 2013, and the 6 page FY 2013 Performance and
Financial Highlights was posted March 25, 2013. Recently, the NSF has focused on obtaining high return on investment from their spending on scientific research.
Various bills have sought to direct funds within the NSF. In 1981, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) introduced a proposal to reduce the NSF social sciences directorate's budget by 75%. Economist Robert A. Moffit suggests a connection between this proposal and Democratic Senator William Proxmire'sGolden Fleece Award
series criticizing "frivolous" government spending—Proxmire's first
Golden Fleece had been awarded to the NSF in 1975 for granting $84,000
to a social science project investigating why people fall in love.
Ultimately, the OMB's 75% reduction proposal failed, but the NSF
Economics Program budget did fall 40%. In 2012, political science research was barred from NSF funding by the passage of the Flake Amendment, breaking the precedent of granting the NSF autonomy to determine its own priorities.
Legislation requiring specific appropriations for various directorates
was approved by the House of Representatives in May 2015.
Timeline
Pre–World War II
Although
the federal government had established nearly 40 scientific
organizations between 1910 and 1940, the US relied upon a primarily laissez-faire
approach to scientific research and development. Academic research in
science and engineering occasionally received federal funding. Within
University laboratories, almost all support came from private
contributions and charitable foundations. In industrial laboratories,
the concentration of workers and funding (some through military and
government programs as a result of Roosevelt's New Deal)
would eventually raise concern during the wartime period. In
particular, concerns were raised that industry laboratories were largely
allowed full patent rights of technologies developed with federal
funds. These concerns, in part, led to efforts like Senator Harley M. Kilgore's "Science Mobilization Act".
1940–49
Amidst
growing awareness that US military capability depended on strength in
science and engineering, Congress considered several proposals to
support research in these fields. Separately, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored creation of organizations to coordinate federal funding of science for war, including the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development
both from 1941 to 1947. Despite broad agreement over the principle of
federal support for science, working out a consensus on how to organize
and manage it required five years.
The five-year political debate over the creation of a national
scientific agency has been a topic for academic study, understood from a
variety of perspectives. Themes include disagreements over administrative structure, patents and inclusion of social sciences, a populist-versus-scientist dispute, as well as the roles of political parties, Congress, and President Truman.
Commonly, this debate is characterized by the conflict between New Deal Senator Harley M. Kilgore and OSRD head Vannevar Bush.
Narratives about the National Science Foundation prior to the 1970s
typically concentrated on Vannevar Bush and his 1945 publication
Science—The Endless Frontier. In this report, Vannevar Bush, then head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development which began the Manhattan Project, addressed plans for the postwar years to further foster government commitment to science and technology.
Issued to President Harry S. Truman in July 1945, the report made a
strong case for federally-funded scientific research, arguing that the
nation would reap rich dividends in the form of better health care, a
more vigorous economy, and a stronger national defense. It proposed
creating a new federal agency, the National Research Foundation.
The NSF first appeared as a comprehensive New Deal Policy proposed by Sen. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia. In 1942, Senator Kilgore introduced the "Science Mobilization Act" (S. 1297), which did not pass.
Perceiving organizational chaos, elitism, over-concentration of funds
in elite universities, and lack of incentives for socially applicable
research, Kilgore envisioned a comprehensive and centralized research
body supporting basic and applied research which would be controlled by members of the public and civil servants rather than scientific experts.
The public would own the rights to all patents funded by public monies
and research monies would be equitably spread across universities.
Kilgore's supporters included non-elite universities, small businesses,
and the Budget Bureau. His proposals received mixed support.
Vannevar Bush opposed Kilgore, preferring science policy driven by experts and scientists rather than public and civil servants.
Bush was concerned that public interests would politicize science, and
believed that scientists would be the best judges of the direction and
needs of their field. While Bush and Kilgore both agreed on the need for
a national science policy, Bush maintained that scientists should continue to own the research results and patents,
wanted project selection limited to scientists, and focused support on
basic research, not the social sciences, leaving the market to support
applied projects.
Sociologist Daniel Kleinman divides the debate into three broad
legislative attempts. The first attempt consisted of the 1945 Magnuson
bill (S. 1285), the 1945 Science and Technology Mobilization Bill, a
1945 compromise bill (S. 1720), a 1946 compromise bill (S. 1850), and
the Mills Bill (H.B. 6448). The Magnuson bill was sponsored by Senator Warren Magnuson
and drafted by the OSRD, headed by Vannevar Bush. The Science and
Technology Mobilization bill was promoted by Harley Kilgore. The bills
called for the creation of a centralized science agency, but differed in
governance and research supported. The second attempt, in 1947, included Senator H. Alexander Smith's bill S. 526, and Senator Elbert Thomas's
bill S. 525. The Smith bill reflected ideas of Vannevar Bush, while the
Thomas bill was identical to the previous year's compromise bill (S.
1850).
After amendments, the Smith bill made it to President Truman's
desk, but it was vetoed. Truman wrote that regrettably, the proposed
agency would have been "divorced from control by the people to an extent
that implies a distinct lack of faith in the democratic process".
The third attempt began with the introduction of S. 2385 in 1948. This
was a compromise bill cosponsored by Smith and Kilgore, and Bush aide
John Teeter had contributed in the drafting process. In 1949, S. 247 was
introduced by the same group of senators behind S. 2385, marking the
fourth and final effort to establish a national science agency.
Essentially identical to S. 2385, S. 247 passed the Senate and the House
with a few amendments.
It was signed by President Truman on May 10, 1950. Kleinman points out
that the final NSF bill closely resembles Vannevar Bush's proposals.
Kilgore and Bush Proposals differed on five issues which were central to the larger debate (Chart reproduced)
1950–59
In 1950 Harry S. Truman signed Public Law 507, or 42 U.S.C. 16 creating the National Science Foundation. which provided for a National Science Board of twenty-four part-time members. In 1951 Truman nominated Alan T. Waterman, chief scientist at the Office of Naval Research,
to become the first Director. With the Korean War underway, the
agency's initial budget was just $151,000 for 9 months. After moving its
administrative offices twice, NSF began its first full year of
operations with an appropriation from Congress of $3.5 million, far less
the almost $33.5 million requested with which 28 research grants were
awarded. After the 1957 Soviet Union orbited Sputnik 1,
the first ever man-made satellite, national self-appraisal questioned
American education, scientific, technical and industrial strength and
Congress increased the NSF appropriation for 1958 to $40 million. In
1958 the NSF selected Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona,
as the site of the first national observatory, that would give any
astronomer unprecedented access to state-of-the-art telescopes;
previously major research telescopes were privately funded, available
only to astronomers who taught at the universities that ran them. The
idea expanded to encompass the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the National Solar Observatory, the Gemini Observatory and the Arecibo Observatory, all of which are funded in whole or in part by NSF. The NSF's astronomy program forged a close working relationship with NASA,
also founded in 1958, in that the NSF provides virtually all the U.S.
federal support for ground-based astronomy, while NASA's responsibility
is the U.S. effort in space-based astronomy. In 1959 the U.S. and other
nations concluded the Antarctic Treaty reserving Antarctica
for peaceful and scientific research, and a presidential directive gave
the NSF responsibility for virtually all U.S. Antarctic operations and
research in form of the United States Antarctic Program.
1960–69
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed Leland John Haworth as the second director of the NSF. During the 1960s, the impact of the Sputnik Crisis spurred international competition in science and technology and accelerated NSF growth.
The NSF initiated a number of programs that support institution-wide
research during this decade including the Graduate Science Facilities
program (started in 1960), Institutional Grants for Science (started in
1961), and Science Development Grants, better known as Centers of
Excellence program (started in 1964). Notable projects conducted during this decade include creation of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (1960), creation of the Division of Environmental Sciences (1965), deep sea exploration endeavors Project Mohole (1961) and the Deep Sea Drilling Project (1968-1983), the Ecosystems Analysis Program (1969), and ownership of the Arecibo Observatory (1969). In 1969, Franklin Long was tentatively selected to take over directorship of the NSF. His nomination caused some controversy due to his opposition to the current administration's antiballistic missile program and was ultimately rejected by President Richard Nixon. William D. McElroy instead took over as the third director of the NSF in 1969. By 1968, the NSF budget had reached nearly $500 million.
1970–79
In 1972 the NSF took over management of twelve interdisciplinary materials research laboratories from the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA). These university-based laboratories had taken a more
integrated approach than did most academic departments at the time,
encouraging physicists, chemists, engineers, and metallurgists to cross
departmental boundaries and use systems approaches to attack complex
problems of materials synthesis or processing. The NSF expanded these
laboratories into a nationwide network of Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. In 1972 the NSF launched the biennial "Science & Engineering Indicators" report
to the US president and Congress, as required by the NSF Act of 1950.
In 1977 the first interconnection of unrelated networks was developed,
run by DARPA.
1980–89
During
this decade, increasing NSF involvement lead to a three-tiered system
of internetworks managed by a mix of universities, nonprofit
organizations, and government agencies. By the mid-1980s, primary
financial support for the growing project was assumed by the NSF.
In 1983, NSF budget topped $1 billion for the first time. Major
increases in the nation's research budget were proposed as "the country
recognizes the importance of research in science and technology, and
education". The U.S. Antarctic Program
was taken out of the NSF appropriation now requiring a separate
appropriation. The NSF received more than 27,000 proposals and funded
more than 12,000 of them in 1983. In 1985, the NSF delivered ozone
sensors, along with balloons and helium, to researchers at the South
Pole so they can measure stratospheric ozone loss. This was in response
to findings earlier that year, indicating a steep drop in ozone over a
period of several years. The Internet project continued, now known as NSFNET.
1990–99
In
1990 the NSF's appropriation passed $2 billion for the first time. NSF
funded the development of several curricula based on the NCTM standards, devised by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. These standards were widely adopted by school districts during the subsequent decade. However, in what newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal called the "math wars", organizations such as Mathematically Correct complained that some elementary texts based on the standards, including Mathland,
have almost entirely abandoned any instruction of traditional
arithmetic in favor of cutting, coloring, pasting, and writing. During
that debate, NSF was both lauded and criticized for favoring the
standards. In 1991 the NSFNET acceptable use policy
was altered to allow commercial traffic. By 1995, with private,
commercial market thriving, NSF decommissioned the NSFNET, allowing for
public use of the Internet. In 1993 students and staff at the
NSF-supported National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, developed Mosaic, the first freely available browser to allow World Wide Web
pages that include both graphics and text. Within 18 months, NCSA
Mosaic becomes the Web browser of choice for more than a million users,
and sets off an exponential growth in the number of Web users. In 1994
NSF, together with DARPA and NASA, launched the Digital Library Initiative. One of the first six grants went to Stanford University, where two graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
began to develop a search engine that used the links between Web pages
as a ranking method, which they later commercialized under the name Google.
In 1996 NSF-funded research established beyond doubt that the chemistry
of the atmosphere above Antarctica was grossly abnormal and that levels
of key chlorine compounds are greatly elevated. During two months of
intense work, NSF researchers learned most of what is known about the ozone hole.
In 1998 two independent teams of NSF-supported astronomers discovered
that the expansion of the universe was actually speeding up, as if some
previously unknown force, now known as dark energy,
is driving the galaxies apart at an ever-increasing rate. Since passage
of the Small Business Technology Transfer Act of 1992 (Public Law
102–564, Title II), NSF has been required to reserve 0.3% of its
extramural research budget for Small Business Technology Transfer
awards, and 2.8% of its R&D budget for small business innovation
research.
2000–09
NSF joined with other federal agencies in the National Nanotechnology Initiative,
dedicated to the understanding and control of matter at the atomic and
molecular scale. NSF's roughly $300 million annual investment in
nanotechnology research was still one of the largest in the 23-agency
initiative. In 2001, NSF's appropriation passed $4 billion. The NSF's
"Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and
Technology" revealed that the public had a positive attitude toward
science, but a poor understanding of it. During 2004–5 NSF sent "rapid response" research teams to investigate the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster and Hurricane Katrina. An NSF-funded engineering team helped uncover why the levees failed in New Orleans.
In 2005, NSF's budget stood at $5.6 billion, in 2006 it stood at
$5.91 billion for the 2007 fiscal year (October 1, 2006 through
September 30, 2007), and in 2007 NSF requested $6.43 billion for FY
2008.
2010–present
President Obama requested $7.373 billion for fiscal year 2013. Due to the October 1, 2013 shutdown
of the Federal Government, and NSF's lapse in funding, their website
was down "until further notice," but was brought back online after the
US government passed their budget. In 2014, NSF awarded rapid response
grants to study a chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water of
about 300,000 West Virginia residents. In early 2018, it was announced that Trump would cut NSF Research Funding by 30% but quickly rescinded this due to backlash.
As of May 2018, Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air Force, signed
that letter of intent with the director of NSF initiating partnership
for the research related to space operations and Geosciences, advanced material sciences, information and data sciences, and workforce and processes.
Grants and the merit review process
The
NSF seeks to fulfill its mission chiefly by issuing competitive,
limited-term grants in response to specific proposals from the research
community and establishing cooperative agreements with research
organizations. It does not operate its own laboratories, unlike other federal research agencies, notable examples being NASA and the National Institutes of Health
(NIH). The NSF uses four main mechanisms to communicate funding
opportunities and generate proposals: dear colleague letters, program
descriptions, program announcements, and program solicitations.
The NSF receives over 50,000 such proposals each year, and funds about 10,000 of them.
Those funded are typically projects that are ranked highest in a
'merit review' process, the current version of which was introduced in
1997.
Reviews are carried out by ad hoc reviewers and panels of independent
scientists, engineers, and educators who are experts in the relevant
fields of study, and who are selected by the NSF with particular
attention to avoiding conflicts of interest. For example, reviewers
cannot work at the NSF itself, nor for the institution that employs the
proposing researchers. All proposal evaluations are confidential: the
proposing researchers may see them, but they do not see the names of the
reviewers.
The first merit review criterion is 'intellectual merit', the
second is that of the 'broader societal impact' of the proposed
research; the latter reflects a broader global trend for funding
agencies to demand evidence of research 'impact' and has been met with
opposition from the scientific and policy communities since its
inception in 1997. In June 2010, the National Science Board
(NSB), the governing body for NSF and science advisers to both the
legislative and executive branches, convened a 'Task Force on Merit
Review' to determine "how well the current Merit Review criteria used by
the NSF to evaluate all proposals were serving the agency."
The task force reinforced its support for both criteria as appropriate
for the goals and aims of the agency and published a revised version of
the merit review criteria in its 2012 report, to clarify and improve the
function of the criteria. However, both criteria already had been
mandated for all NSF merit review procedures in the 2010
re-authorization of the America COMPETES Act. The Act also includes an emphasis on promoting potentially transformative research, a phrase which has been included in the most recent incarnation of the 'merit review' criteria.
Most NSF grants go to individuals or small groups of
investigators, who carry out research at their home campuses. Other
grants provide funding for mid-scale research centers, instruments, and
facilities that serve researchers from many institutions. Still, others
fund national-scale facilities that are shared by the research community
as a whole. Examples of national facilities include the NSF's national
observatories, with their giant optical and radio telescopes; its Antarctic
research sites; its high-end computer facilities and ultra-high-speed
network connections; the ships and submersibles used for ocean research;
and its gravitational wave observatories.
In addition to researchers and research facilities, NSF grants
also support science, engineering and mathematics education from pre-K
through graduate school. Undergraduates can receive funding through Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs. Graduate students are supported through Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeships (IGERT) and Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) programs and through the Graduate Research Fellowships, NSF-GRF. K-12 and some community college instructors are eligible to participate in compensated Research Experiences for Teachers programs.
In addition, an early career-development program (CAREER) supports
teacher-scholars that most effectively integrate research and education
within the mission of their organization, as a foundation for a lifetime
of integrated contributions.
Scope and organization
National Science Foundation's former headquarters
The NSF is broadly organized into four offices, seven directorates, and the National Science Board. It employs about 2,100 people in permanent, temporary and contractual positions at its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Prior to 2017, its headquarters were located in Arlington, Virginia.
In addition to around 1,400 permanent employees and the staffs of the NSB office and the Office of the Inspector General, the NSF workforce includes some 200 scientists on temporary duty and 450 contract workers.
Scientists from research institutions can join the NSF as temporary
program directors, called "rotators", overseeing the merit review
process and searching for new funding opportunities. These assignments
typically last 1–2 years, but may extend to 4. The NSF also offers contracting opportunities. As of May 2018, the NSF has 53 existing contracts.
Offices
Office of the Director
Office of the Inspector General
Office of Budget, Finance, and Award Management
Office of Information & Resource Management
The NSF also supports research through several offices within the
Office of the Director, including the Office of Cyberinfrastructure, Office of Polar Programs, Office of Integrative Activities, and Office of International Science and Engineering.
Research directorates
The NSF organizes its research and education support through seven directorates, each encompassing several disciplines:
Engineering (bioengineering, environmental systems, civil and
mechanical systems, chemical and transport systems, electrical and
communications systems, and design and manufacturing)
Geosciences (geological, atmospheric and ocean sciences)
Prior
to October 2018, NSF maintained three overseas offices to promote
collaboration between the science and engineering communities of the
United States and other continents' scientific communities:
Brussels for Europe, formerly based in Paris (established 1984; relocated to Brussels in 2015)
Tokyo for East Asia, except China (established 1960)
All three overseas offices were shut down in October 2018, to reflect
the agency's move to a more nimble international posture. Rather than
maintain dedicated offices, NSF will dispatch small teams to specific
international institutions. Teams may work for up to a week on-site to
evaluate research and explore collaborations with the institution.
Crosscutting programs
In
addition to the research it funds in specific disciplines, the NSF has
launched a number of projects that coordinate the efforts of experts in
many disciplines, which often involve collaborations with other U.S.
federal agencies. Examples include initiatives in:
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
(NCSES) gathers data from surveys and partnerships with other agencies
to offer official data on the American science and engineering
workforce, graduates of advanced U.S. science and engineering programs,
and R&D expenditures by U.S. industry. NCSES is one of the principal U.S. statistical agencies. It is a part of the NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE).
Criticism
In May 2011, Republican Senator Tom Coburn released a 73-page report, "National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope", receiving immediate attention from such media outlets as The New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC.
The report found fault with various research projects and was critical
of the social sciences. It started a controversy about political bias
and a Congressional Inquiry into federally sponsored research. In 2014,
Republicans proposed a bill to limit the NSF Board's authority in
grant-writing.
In 2013, the NSF had funded the work of Mark Carey at University of Oregon
with a $412,930 grant, which included a study concerning gender in
glaciological research. After its January 2016 release, the NSF drew
criticism for alleged misuse of funding.
Some historians of science have argued that the National Science
Foundation Act of 1950 was an unsatisfactory compromise between too many
clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government. The NSF was certainly not the primary government agency for the funding of basic science, as its supporters had originally envisioned in the aftermath of World War II. By 1950, support for major areas of research had already become dominated by specialized agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (medical research) and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (nuclear and particle physics). That pattern would continue after 1957 when U.S. anxiety over the launch of Sputnik led to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (space science) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (defense-related research).
