Journal of Education and Literature Vol. 4, No. 2, 2016, 61-76
Re-Aligning Approaches for Successful Implementation of STEM Education in Today’s Elementary Schools in Developing Countries: Policy Commitments and Practices John Fungulupembe Kalolo1 Abstract Providing all students with access to effective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is important for all nations’ competitiveness. Several high-profile proposals are increasingly presented by both academic and business communities to address the need for successful implementation of STEM education in todays’ schools. Different nations are therefore in a rally to find out appropriate approaches for successful implementation of STEM education in schools. However, the achievement of this desire has not been easy for most of countries as it has been clouded by various dilemmas regarding the best ways for successful implementation of STEM education. This study aimed at identifying various promising approaches for the successful implementation of effective STEM education in developing countries. Specifically, the study focused at examining how policies, commitments and practices can be aligned for successful implementation of effective STEM education. This discussion is important in that it reveals many issues that explain what it takes to having an effective STEM education. 1. Introduction STEM education is a broad reform based movement in the areas of mathematics, science, technology, and engineering that seeks to cultivate a STEM-proficient workforce and a STEM-literate citizenry to increase the states’ competitiveness in the global economy (Schmidt, 2011). Increasingly, definitions of STEM also include reference to an interdisciplinary approach that aims to cultivate a deeper understand of each subject through an emphasis on the interrelated nature of mathematics, science, technology, and engineering. The other realm of educators identify STEM education as a non-traditional education system that shifts students away from learning discrete bits and pieces of phenomenon and rote procedures toward investigating and questioning the interrelated facets of the real world (Smith, & O’Day, 1991). The STEM fields appear to be treated as facets of the whole in a sense that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. The merging of different areas of STEM is crucial in that when explicit instruction does not make connections across STEM disciplines, isolated disciplines may prevent students from building necessary competencies and connections among the four areas of STEM. In such integration each discipline in STEM has its own role in the meaning of whole. For example, mathematics has been identified as the language of science, and engineering and technology as integral parts to science (Kuenzi, 2008). Though there is an evolving need to treat STEM fields as whole, more often these fields seem to be treated separately, and science and mathematics being the subject of the most research (Hanover Research, 2011).A consensus exists that improving STEM education in today’s schools especially in developing countries is a necessary condition for preserving the country’s capacity for innovation, discovery, improving, economic strength and competitiveness in the international market place of the 21st century.
1
A lecturer at Mkwawa University College of Education of Education, Iringa, Tanzania
© 2016 Research Academy of Social Sciences http://www.rassweb.com
61