Scientific literacy of population: social challenge and institutional solutions

In modern conditions of all sphere scientific knowledge intensive development the issue of teaching and promotion of scientific literacy is becoming one of the main social priorities. The fundamental role of scientific literacy in worldview, political, economic, social and educational context of human life and activities had predetermined constantly increasing attention to that issue from social sciences specialists. The main approaches to the understanding of the term «scientific literacy», the evolution of the most spread and approved by academic and educational communities definitions are accented. Simultaneously, the basic courses for raising scientific literacy of different strata of population are defined. The authors characterizes in detail the potential barriers of teaching scientific literacy in educational institutions on primary, secondary and additional levels: the complexity of science as a phenomena, parascience and pseudoscience dissemination, dynamics in cognitive potential and structure of scientific disciplines, integration and differentiation of science, appearance of new types of scientific problems, increasing of multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary researches, etc. State, public and business - organizations are viewed as the main institutions responsible for teaching and promotion of scientific literacy of population. Among them the following institutions can be mentioned: educational (secondary schools, colleges, universities), social and cultural (national and public libraries, museums, cognitive development studios), business-structures (technoparks, companies and corporations). The role of publishing houses and other mass media sources is thus an overriding concern. Regional network approach on the partnership basis is considered to be the effective instrument for scientific literacy teaching and promotion. The information platform for electronic educational resources open exchange and dissemination is considered as the statutory and integrative part of the network.