Abstract

The relationship between school geography and academic geography has been an area of interest of increasing importance among geographers. The present study based on an online survey involving school geography teachers as well as academic geographers in Sri Lanka, reveals that the relationship between them has been dominated by the desire to obtain and provide substantive knowledge. This has been mainly due to the highly competitive nature of the government-conducted Advanced Level Examination which selects the entrants to the university.  The lack of attention to disciplinary knowledge, however, has deprived students of an opportunity to be able to think geographically. This has adversely affected not only the image of geography as a discipline in the school curriculum but also the resourcefulness and employability of the school leavers as well as the geography graduates. The root cause of this state of affairs lies with academic geography mainly due to the compartmentalized and fragmented nature of the undergraduate education. The credit-based course unit system of teaching in universities has contributed to the horizontal disintegration of the discipline.

Keywords: Disciplinary knowledge, factual knowledge, fragmentation, course unit system, academic geography, school geography