Purpose – This paper stems from a study which was conducted as a means to first, find out whether there is a gap between the secondary and tertiary education levels, second identify any existing gap in Science and Technology education, and third, examine the impact of the above upon students’ creativity and innovativeness at university level. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – As such, a group of teachers and students at both secondary and tertiary levels were selected as the sample of the study. Questionnaires were administered to trained secondary school teachers and to university students. Interviews were also conducted to triangulate data. These enabled an analysis of the current situation in terms of students’ engagement/creativity/innovativeness in Science and Technology at secondary and tertiary levels. Findings – The findings reveal a problematic situation arising with respect to beliefs and what truly prevails in the education sector at secondary and tertiary levels. This study has revealed a number of salient issues related to the gap existing between the secondary and tertiary levels of education in Mauritius, with special bearing on creativity and innovation in Science and Technology. Research limitations/implications – Only three institutions were involved, with a small sample of students, so that the findings cannot be generalised. Moreover, gender is a variable that has not been taken into consideration. Practical implications – The study has proposed a number of recommendations to enable Mauritian students (at secondary and tertiary levels) to develop creativity and hopefully become innovators. This leads us to believe that the recommendations emerging from this study will be beneficial to various stakeholders who wish to understand the gap existing between secondary and tertiary education in Science and Technology education. Originality/value – This study takes a case study approach adopting a mixture of interviews, surveys and observations to understand the research problems with regards to the younger generations need to be equipped with scientific and technological advances in acquiring knowledge, new sets of skills and values. Therefore, this study endeavours to document the perceptions of learners and faculty staff.

The teaching and learning of science have far-reaching curricular objectives which require teachers, students, and parents to be engaged in the teacher-parent-learner (TPL) nexus. During this endeavour, learners are guided to relate their prior knowledge to the science concepts (Grade 9, age group 13-14 years) during a home task activity under the supervision of their parents through an initial collaborative engagement (ICE) on the myptim platform (www.myptim.org). After finishing this activity, learners are invited to submit their work on the platform following their parents’ confirmation through the parent’s platform. In this paper, through an exploratory multiple case study involving six students and four parents, we present preliminary findings regarding the use of the myptim platform for the study of a lesson on ‘Measurement’. The empirical evidence collected through unstructured interviews with the participants indicates that the myptim platform is a promising technological pedagogical tool for the advancement of the teaching and learning of science, in particular, physics. This paper contributes to literature on technology integration through the perspective of teacher-parent-learner nexus.

These days, genomes of many species are being rapidly completed. Some of them already available are: Human genome, Mouse genome, Fly genome, Zebra fish genome, Nematode genome.

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