This is the 24th post in a blog series to be published in 2021 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is a field and curriculum that focuses on education in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The STEM acronym was coined in 2001 by scientific administrators at the National Science Foundation in the United States (NSF)[1]. It has since gained leverage globally, and this includes the AU Member States.

STEM education in Africa is falling behind when compared with the rest of the world. The African Development Bank has reported that less than 25% of African higher education students pursue STEM-related career fields, with more students pursuing social sciences and humanities.[2] Consequently, this leads to limited STEM skills in the STEM-related career pool and subsequently limited domestic STEM workforce.

Despite this shortfall, Africa, due to its unique population situation, has immense potential for transforming its own and the world economy through STEM, and African schools play a large role in this potential. Africa currently boasts the greatest youth population in the world, and according to the World Population Perspectives of the United Nations[3], more than 60% of Africa currently comprises younger than 25 years of age citizens, with 19% of the world's population between the ages of 15-24 in Africa. By 2035 the working population in Sub-Saharan Africa will be larger than the whole world in combination; other employees worldwide, by contrast, are ageing.

Africa may hold some of the fastest developing economies in the world, but only by investing in STEM education for young people can it compete with the rest of the world.

The African Union's Agenda 2063 aspires for inclusive growth and sustainable education programmes that can ensure skills revolution accentuating innovation, science, and technology. That is why the African Union Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) aims to transform Africa's education and training systems to generate sustainable knowledge, competencies, skills, innovation, and creativity suitable for Africa's socio-economic development. As such, African countries are revitalising and expanding access to quality education, harnessing the capacity of training systems, harmonising education management and integration, and strengthening the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula. This includes disseminating scientific knowledge and promoting the culture of science within African society.

Furthermore, the African Union's Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) emphasises science, technology, and innovation (STI) as the focal point for Africa's socio-economic development and growth. Fundamentally, STI-enabled socio-economic development can significantly impact critical economic sectors such as agriculture, energy, environment, health, infrastructure development, mining, security, and water, among others. However, for these aspirations to be successfully executed, African countries need to develop skilled human resources to enable transformative innovation-led and knowledge-based economic development. This can be achieved through robust STEM capabilities.

The African Union High Level Panel on Innovation and Emerging Technologies (APET) encourages AU Member States to sustainably develop and inclusively implement practical and localised STEM education. APET believes that Africa's rapid economic growth can be accomplished by utilising scientific and technological research, development, and innovation that well-trained and skilled African STEM graduates adequately support.

To demonstrate this, some African countries such as Rwanda have recognised the significance of STEM education and subsequently increased efforts towards reviewing their country's education curriculum. The revised curriculum places STEM education as an important pillar of their education system. Such efforts have tremendously improved infrastructure investments, such as well-equipped STEM laboratories, to make STEM more practical.[4]

Rwanda has significantly promoted STEM education across all levels of study. For example, in 2019, Rwanda introduced the newly developed education curriculum referred to as the "New Competence-Based Curriculum" for pre-primary up to upper secondary education. This new curriculum underpins building a knowledge-based and technology-led economy through well-adjusted STEM and Information, and Communication Technology (ICT) led education.[5] Rwanda's Ministry of Education has partnered with technology-enabled companies such as Microsoft, O'Genius Panada, Zora Robotics and Class VR, and the Keza company, among others, towards incorporating STEM and ICT-enabled educational system.[6] For example, this programme allows for the utilisation of ICT and other technologies to promote transferable skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.

Furthermore, the technology-enabled teaching in schools has effectively enhanced the efficiency of student-and-teacher interaction and teaching pedagogy. Such digital technology platforms enable students to collaborate and easily communicate with their teachers. In addition, teachers can administer tests, quizzes, examinations in a timely manner. With such digital technology-enabled assessment platforms, teachers and students can relay and receive timely feedback.

The Microsoft Technology teaching methodology utilises robotics to improve students' hands-on engagement and activities.[7] These include students' exposure earlier on to computer programming and developing students' computational and logical thinking to solve real-life problems. This is accomplished by modelling problems and designing solutions. Furthermore, Rwanda's One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) flagship programme has encouraged ICT-enabled primary school education. Consequently, through the OLPC flagship programme, Rwanda's ICT-enabled education has increased by up to 64% and 55% in primary and secondary schools, respectively.[8] In addition, the Rwanda Coding Academy flagship programme has prepared Rwandan youth into future software developers and cybersecurity systems experts.

In addition to developing a technology-enabled education curriculum, the Rwandan education system has been designed such that it allows for extended time allocation for STEM-related subjects relative to arts-related subjects. As such, this is predominantly implemented at the primary school level. Further to this, Rwanda has significantly invested in essential STEM-related infrastructure such as laboratory equipment and accompanying material necessary for teaching STEM subjects. For example, in the past 25 years, Rwanda has equipped approximately 380 secondary schools with modern science laboratory tools.[9] Even though there is still more work to be done, Rwanda's STEM outputs are progressively improving.[10]

Rwanda's education policy emphasises training teachers enhanced teaching pedagogy on lesson delivery that links classroom learning with the local environment. The curriculum framework incorporates teachers capacity building that includes continuous professional development in school leadership, management, improvement planning, coaching, and mentoring. These capacity-building frameworks are put in place in Rwanda to address the barriers hindering the STEM uptake as any other African country. In this way, Rwanda can address the limited number of qualified STEM teachers and STEM teachers' inability to localise STEM teaching. Such measures have somewhat improved the STEM education uptake in Rwanda.

In conclusion, based on the STEM progress accomplished in Rwanda, APET advises other African countries to consider improving their STEM education programmes and investments. With robust STEM education infrastructure, students can easily perform experiments independently and improve their problem-solving skills as needed by the knowledge-based economy. African countries are urged to update their curricula to localise their STEM education and make it more practical to accommodate efficient methodologies of teaching science in schools. Finally, African Member States are encouraged to significantly invest in their country's STEM education.

 

Featured Bloggers – APET Secretariat

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[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/STEM-education

[2] http://education.africapolicyreview.com/education-youth-development/stem-education-and-african-development/

[3] https://population.un.org/wpp/

[4] https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/featured-govt-invests-heavily-stem-education-rwandan-schools

[5] https://www.mineduc.gov.rw/fileadmin/user_upload/Mineduc/Publications/POLICIES/Education_Policy.pdf

[6] https://allafrica.com/stories/202002140099.html

[7] https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/43/2018/06/Transforming-Education-eBook.pdf

[8] https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/featured-govt-invests-heavily-stem-education-rwandan-schools

[9]https://www.cio.co.ke/stem-education-prioritised-in-rwandan-schools/

[10] Kizito Ndihokubwayo, Investigating the status and barriers of science laboratory activities in Rwandan teacher training colleges towards improvisation practice, Rwandan Journal of Education - Volume 4 No 1 (2017) 47