A blog that tackles issues on basic education (in the Philippines and the United States) including early childhood education, the teaching profession, math and science education, medium of instruction, poverty, and the role of research and higher education.
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The STEM Situation in the United States
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Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) play a vital role in industrialized and knowledge-based economies. Thus, there is particular attention to these fields when a country weighs its current standing in the global economy. The president of the United States spent several sentences on this issue in his inaugural speech months ago. STEM issues, however, are not easily distilled or summarized in a simple picture. Very recently, the Economics Policy Institute (EPI) published a paper that suggested that in terms of the STEM workforce, the United States actually does not face a serious shortage. In "Guestworkers in the high-skill U.S. labor market", Salzman, Kuehl and Lowell demonstrated by analyzing current statistics on both education and employment that "the United States has more than a sufficient supply of workers available to work in STEM occupations."
The following figures copied from the EPI paper illustrate the arguments made by the authors. First, although the US may seem lagging behind other countries in international exams on math and the sciences, the US still holds a significant share of the best performing students in these fields:
Shares of OECD countries’ high-performing students
Second, among high school graduates, only a small percentage, 2.5%, actually enters a job in a STEM field. This is smaller than the 4% who actually receives a STEM degree:
Percent of high school graduates going to college, graduating, and then entering a STEM job
And to drive the argument home, STEM graduates are finding employment in their field not as a given. In the figure below, employment of STEM graduates in their respective STEM field is far from 100%:
Occupational field of STEM college majors one year after graduation, 2009
One must keep in mind that the data above tackle only one aspect of STEM education. The above only deals with the fraction of the population that will in fact practice in a specific and well-defined STEM field. STEM education probably has no problems if only the cream of the crop requires consideration. However, STEM goes far beyond the field itself as both science and math touch human lives in so many dimensions.
The EPI concentrates on jobs that are specifically or directly associated with STEM. This completely ignores the fact that STEM is now part of almost every issue man faces. Skills in STEM are now required to participate productively in society. Thus, the EPI study misses one important point that was laid out by a study done by the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute:
Finally, current important issues the world is facing, like sustainability and climate change, require a citizenry that is able to understand the math and science behind these issues. The following video illustrates this dilemma in a very concrete fashion:
TANONG: ANO ANG KTO12 PROGRAM? SAGOT: Ang Kto12 Program ng gobyerno ng Pilipinas ay tumutukoy sa pagkakaroon ng mandatory o required na kindergarten at karagdagang 2 taon sa dating 10-year Basic Education Cycle. Kung noon, pagkatapos ng anim na taon sa elementarya at apat na taon sa hayskul (kabuuang 10 taon) ay maaari nang makapagkolehiyo ang mga estudyante. Sa ilalim ng Kto12, bago makapagkolehiyo, kailangan pa nilang dumaan sa karagdagang 2 taon pagkatapos ng apat na taong hayskul. Sa bagong sistema, tinatawag na senior high school o junior college ang karagdagang 2 tao…
People have strong opinions about almost anything and the issue of education is no exception. How these opinions have been formed needs to be examined. This is what good research does. It informs and guides. A myriad of factors influence education and oftentimes, these factors are not independent from each other. Factors interact, sometimes these add, and other times, these subtract. General notions therefore need to be carefully drawn. Writing articles on education can also be quite challenging. When problems in basic education involve an inability to think critically, it is difficult to reach the audience and convey the correct message. Oftentimes, sarcasm is lost so such style of writing needs to be avoided. For people who are convinced of their wisdom and understanding of how education works, profound messages from basic research can be often easily lost.
There is information to be gained from data. Tests in schools can be informative. Scores of students provide a quick glimpse of the current state of education. Thus, it is useful to have these numbers. These numbers may not tell everything in detail with high accuracy. Nevertheless, test results allow for a useful perspective. The National Achievement Test administered by the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines, a set of standardized tests addressing the major subjects taught in school, is an example. These tests are given to Grade 3 where students are assessed in both English and Filipino (These two subjects comprise two thirds of the exam) and Math and Science (These two account for the remaining one third). A different set of tests is given to Grade 6 pupils where each of the following 5 subjects is assigned 40 items: (Science, Math, English, Filipino and Social Studies). Another set is administered to fourth year high school students (This is currently the last year…
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