The path to an economy based on STEM is through a secondary school strong in STEM

STEM is an educational approach that refers to transdisciplinary education of science, technology, engineering, and math. It belongs to an educational perception that disciplines exist together in real life and the educational process must accept this relationship also when teaching them. Even more, this approach makes knowledge real and ‘tangible’ to the students.

Nevertheless, we agree that teaching by discipline, focusing on each discipline separately, enable a more detail and deeper learning, however we are not sure whether the students manage to connect themselves to the contents and even worst, not sure that afterwards our students know how to take the learn material into reality.

Countries that believe in an economy based on STEM had invested in their education system on each of this discipline and on the transdisciplinary approach. This is not something that happens in one year but a process in which countries decide that this is the path that they want to walk.

If we take the Israel case, we can identify the 2015-2019 as a significant stage on this process. At that time three key programs were lunch: Scientific and technological reserve program, "Give five" -  national program for strengthening mathematics studies and Skillz the Cyber Championship. They didn’t happen together and not even lead by one person but a process that the system developed as a response to an aim – Israel wants to have an economy based on STEM.

The Scientific and technological reserve is a six-year excellence program of the Ministry of Education that aims to increase the number of students who complete 5 study units in mathematics, science and physics. The program takes place from 7th grade to 12th grade. In middle school, program participants receive extra hours in mathematics, physics, computer science and biology according to a unique program. In the upper division, the students of the program receive reinforcement lessons in mathematics and science subjects according to their personal needs. The prestigious program is operated in approximately 270 different schools at the national level and has significant achievements in promoting science and technology education in the State of Israel.

"Give five" - National program for strengthening mathematics studies was led by the education minister, former President Shimon Peres and hi-tech companies. Its goal was to double within 4 years the number of students studying 5 study units in mathematics. The budgeted program of NIS 75 million is intended to place Israel at the forefront of mathematics in the world. The 2 main components of the program were improving the quality of teaching and the access of the students in secondary school to the highest level of mathematics teaching nationwide.

The Skillz program leads and promotes the technological curriculum for children and youth. From its beginning, the program managed to bring about a change in technological education in Israel. Every year, about 350,000 students from around the country are exposed in about 2,000 schools to scientific-technological fields of learning such as programming, mathematics, robotics, engineering and electronics. This number increases year by year and gives the program not only educational significance but also national significance. The program operates as part of the cyber championship, through an array of online games suitable for the children's world. This digital platform makes the pedagogical learning tools accessible in an experiential and practical way, in a way that poses a challenge to the thinking and learning processes of 21st century students.

I believe the ideas of the minister at that time – Naftali Bennett - summarize the vision behind these programs:

“…the future of the State of Israel depends on the development of quality human capital. Increased mathematics studies create the infrastructure for strengthening the Israeli economy and becoming a world leader in academic, industrial (high-tech) and military (Iron Dome) developments.”

I believe we can learn from these programs and processes and transfer this know-how to other countries that wat to have an economy based on STEM. For this purpose, it is required to learn and adapt the lessons learned to the new country and start the transformation.

Taking a tree that’s provide big juicy fruit and a cozy shade from one place to another and expect it will do the same is not a good idea. Threes have roots and get to their status after a process. Moreover, different environments are favorable for specific trees and will not always grow as well in a different environment.

We should ADAPT and not ADOPT, by learning successful models and doing the right adaptation we can create great transformation that will impact the education system and also the entire economy of the country.