Beyond economic goals for STEM education development in the Asia-Pacific

The disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have been rising in importance in the public imagination, especially with the numerous technological upheavals that have taken place even within living memory. In development contexts, public education can be perceived as a form of uplift and a means to prepare individuals for future economic participation. From this perspective, STEM is a highly desirable component of a curriculum which might better guarantee success for societies, especially in economic terms. While this basic narrative is not fundamentally in doubt, the experience of “developed” economies can provide lessons for education development. STEM has been used in ways to amplify the human intention, often in ways that have not been sufficiently interrogated in terms of who benefits from, and who pays for the development and deployment of these technologies. While STEM in practice is deeply enmeshed in sociopolitical considerations, school versions often ignore this aspect, treating it is “not really” STEM. Given the numerous problems that have been amplified by the use and misuses of STEM knowledge, educators should reconsider the nature of STEM and seek to accurately represent its human aspects. Doing so may involve a shift away from a celebratory stance, to take a more circumspect position about the role of STEM in society. However, doing so would also provide students with the collective wisdom in decisions on what technologies ought to be used to serve what kinds of human desires. A critical and humanistic STEM education can attend to these issues, but only if educators attend to a more holistic appreciation of the role of STEM in societies. Given the existing discourses circulating about STEM “for the economy,” there is work to be done by educators to head off the worst excesses of such unbridled visions.