STEM Education: Proceed with caution

Proposals for science, technology, engineering and mathematics to be presented in the secondary curriculum in an integrated way have been developed in some countries for at least three decades now, but are recently becoming more common and more significant. Some proposals are now being delivered with high level political clout, for example President Obama’s November 2009 announcement of a range of STEM initiatives, and the UK appointment of a National STEM Director followed by a range of similar initiatives to promote the STEM agenda. In other countries this grouping of subjects is promoted as a coalition but not necessarily as a school curriculum organiser, for example SET (Science, Engineering and…