FEATURE: EDUCATION TRENDS Kellett School, The British International School in Hong Kong
Full Steam Ahead In recent years, STEM has become a buzzword in education circles, leading to many schools incorporating it into their curriculums. Here, we look at how Hong Kong’s schools are adapting this approach in 2020. – By Sarah Graham
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ver the last two decades, the way educators approach the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics has been constantly evolving. Although STEM education may feel like a recent trend, the concept of combining these subjects to improve competitiveness in these areas has in fact been around since the 1990s. The United States was the first to embrace it to meet a shortfall of candidates for tech jobs. Others quickly followed.
only proposing strategies and recommendations on promoting STEAM education as late as 2015. At the time, the Education Bureau’s report highlighted the need to “nurture a versatile pool of talents with different sets and levels of skills to enhance the competitiveness of Hong Kong” through STEAM education. Since then, it’s safe to say some of Hong Kong’s schools have taken the concept a step further.
Now, it seems, it’s everywhere. And in many schools, it has evolved into STEAM, to include the arts.
Take the newly opened Wycombe Abbey School, for example. It not only promotes STEAM education but has added an ‘i’ to the acronym.
So how is it working in Hong Kong’s schools? When it comes to this particular trend, Hong Kong was a little late to the game, with the Education Bureau
Shahzada Janjua, head of iSTEAM at the school, explains that the addition of the ‘i’ represents computing.
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