THE NEXT 25 YEARS
STEM ‘must be made compulsory’ The curriculum in schools needs to refocus on STEM subjects if Northern Ireland really wants a place at the table when it comes to high value industries, according to the chair of a leading STEM organisation.
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orthern Ireland can forget about becoming a successful Knowledge Economy unless there is a fundamental overhaul of the schools curriculum to embed STEM subjects earlier. That’s the view of Jim Stewart, chairman of Sentinus, an organisation that works with over 60,000 young people every year to deliver programmes that promote engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Mr Stewart believes that while progress is being made to raise the awareness of STEM’s importance to the economy, the schools curriculum in Northern Ireland is still “a bit of a joke”. “The curriculum should include more compulsory STEM involvement at an early age rather than be left to the discretion of the school or the teacher, which means they don’t really do it,” he said. “From the last two years of primary school they should be getting an introduction to STEM and I think STEM should be compulsory right through to 16,” he added. “We think you get the interest from students at the early age. You have to get them bought into this area from primary school. If they are sufficiently enthused at primary school they will want to continue to do this. That is vital to the future of the economy here.” While he acknowledges that a shortage of STEM graduates is being addressed by the Department of Employment & Learning he believes Northern Ireland’s economy will fail on a number of levels if we don’t equip our future workforce with the necessary STEM skills at an earlier age. “We will get left behind. Companies from the likes of Japan and the US who are thinking of investing here are not coming out of sympathy. They are shrewd business people. They will want to come here provided all the requirements are here and that means a well qualified, educated workforce, including STEM. If we don’t have what they are looking for, all the good work from the G8 will be for nothing,” he said. “I’m always struck by a comment I read in Steve Jobs’ book. He was asked by President Obama how many people he employed in China and the Far East and his answer was in the
150 AUGUST 2013
Pictured at the Sentinus Young Innovators Exhibition at the Odyssey Arena are Sean O’Dolan and Nathaniel Mills from St Mary’s Primary School, Mullymesker, Enniskillen working hard at the Sentinus Construction Challenge.
hundreds of thousands. Obama asked why he couldn’t bring those jobs to the US and he said in order to have that number of employees he’d need 30,000 engineers and the US didn’t have them. The same scenario for me exists here. If we want more of the Seagates and the Duponts, more of the high paid, quality jobs that you have in a knowledge based economy, you need STEM graduates coming out of university.” Mr Stewart said there is a huge demand for STEM in schools and enthusiastic teachers but the resources are not available to meet that demand. “The Department of Education give us good support, but at the same time there are a
lot of people missing out on the opportunity. We see 60,000 school kids a year but that’s only 18% of the student population of the age ranges we cover. We are oversubscribed in every programme we do. We get £400,000 from the Department and we triple that in other contributions, so the end result is extremely good value for money,” said Jim. “We have 108 MLAs up at Stormont. Only six of them have a qualification or background of employment in a STEM environment. I’m not trying to say that means they’re not interested. But if you are from the STEM area, you understand it. I don’t see the opportunity for young people here.”