How to Build a Collaborative Ecosystem for Inclusive STEM Education
When companies take action and collaborate with educational institutions and other relevant stakeholders, change on the ground becomes possible
At the SDG Summit 2020, partners of the collaborative platform Together4STEM shared their experience in tackling STEM inequality
Watch the European Roundtable “Multi-stakeholder Collaboration to Foster STEM Skills”
Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) skills are in high demand in the job market as they are critical to solving the world’s biggest sustainability challenges, from COVID-19 to climate change. Their relevance in contributing to Europe’s journey towards climate neutrality is recognised by the European Commission. STEM skills are at the core of key communications on the EU Education Area, the Digital Education Action Plan, the EU Research Area, as well as the European Skills Agenda.
At the European SDG Summit 2020, CSR Europe brought together leading companies of the collaborative platform Together4STEM, to share the work done with educational institutions and other key stakeholders to foster STEM talent. Over the course of the European SDG Roundtable “Multistakeholder Collaboration to Foster STEM Skills”, Amgen, IBM and Johnson & Johnson highlighted the unique position of companies in fostering an ecosystem for impactful private-public sector collaboration. Collaborative actions would allow to transform STEM curricula and increase the quality of education and training with the latest resources available and promote the early adoption of STEM-related subjects in schools.
The roundtable also addressed the lack of STEM professionals and diversity in STEM fields. Participants identified women, minority groups, and people with lower socioeconomic status as the main misrepresented groups in STEM. For participating STEM students having women mentors is an effective way to counter the misrepresentation of genders in STEM that still prevents many young girls from embarking on a STEM career. For companies, on the other hand, working with schools located in lower socioeconomic environments was an effective way to reduce disparities in the STEM pipeline. In doing so, children from different socio-economic backgrounds had the opportunity to explore the wonders of STEM educational resources.
The panel also outlined that a graduate degree does not define one’s career path. Having a degree in a non-STEM field should not prevent graduates from pursuing a career in that direction as skill diversity is an asset. In this respect, the narrative around STEM education should evolve to include skills diversity as an asset, next to gender diversity and inclusion.
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