A survey organized by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) shows that scientific literacy among Chinese adults between the ages of 18 to 69 grew steadily while still being low and lagging behind that in developed countries.

CAST, a government sponsored non-profit organ, arranged the survey on public understanding of science from Feb. 1 to June 30, 2003. Results of the survey, sampling 8,474 Chinese adults, were released by CAST on Wednesday morning in Beijing.

The survey showed that 1.98 percent of the surveyed had basic understanding of science and technology, 0.6 percentage points higher than a similar one done in 2001 and 1.8 percentage points higher than that in 1996.

Some 4.1 percent of urbanites and 0.7 percent of rural adults were within the category of scientific literacy.

More than 90 percent of the surveyed got scientific knowledge via television, 69.5 percent from newspapers and 31.9 percent from broadcast. Only 5.9 percent said they got that information from the Internet.

Some 92.3 percent said they didn't visit any science museums inthe previous year. Nearly 60 percent said they failed to find any of the kind in local places, 17.8 percent said they had no time and 8.9 percent said they had no interest.

According to the survey, teachers, scientists and doctors are the three most admired professions.

Since the 1990s, CAST has organized five nationwide survey like this. In 2001, CAST established a national monitoring net for changing of scientific literacy on the Chinese mainland.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2004)