With the outbreak of corona multiple countries started to work on vaccines for its remedy. With the exception of a few countries rest of them were looking for vaccines from other countries without any effort to do themselves. Well, this is not a new story as this happens every time whenever any problem arises we do not have solutions for them and not even our youth is confident enough to provide solutions to the problems. At this time Pakistan is facing multiple problems like energy crisis, water crisis, health education, environmental crisis, and so on. These problems should be solved scientifically which our education system is unable to do. Recently stem education is becoming popular globally. The purpose of this education is to train the student on a project base that trains them to apply their skills in various fields of life.
STEM education is the myriad of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that trained the student in these subjects with an integrative approach in order to find out the scientific-based solution to the problems. The demand for stem education is growing rapidly in the global market due to its extensive nature. Advanced countries are thinking to promote stem education as the global market is in dire need of competent professionals. The jobs with stem education have many high salaries than those of non-stem jobs. The UK has established stem centers that provide regular training to the student that are project-based. In addition to that, there are summer camps and other non-profit organizations which are working there on stem education free of cost.
Currently, in Pakistan, stem education is at a nascent stage. Stem education in Pakistan is the joint effort of the higher education commission (HEC) and the Pakistan institute of engineering and applied science (PIEAS). The purpose of this joint effort is to inspire the youth to choose careers in stem subjects and to enable the youth to provide innovative solutions to the problems that we are facing today. This is quite a good effort toward stem education but it is not enough for a country that is surrounded by many problems at a time. Now the situation is if the government is trying to solve the problems in one aspect, problems in other aspects started to begin. Haber mass called this situation the legitimation crisis when the government is not able to solve the problems of the society which in turn further steers the problems in every aspect of the society.
On the other hand, the high rate of unemployment in Pakistan is the inability of the graduates to apply their knowledge in practical fields. According to the bureau of statistics report 2020-2021 the unemployment rate is 6.3% in Pakistan which is a 2% increase from 2019. The majority of the graduates are unable to compete in the job market despite having bachelor’s or master’s degrees in their respective fields. If we look at the problems of Pakistan and its education system we can deduce that current problems in the country are caused by the shortcoming in the education system which if removed at the right time, less the problems we will have now.
With the advent of science and technology and the rapidly growing trend of the global economy, it needs to have competent and innovative science-based knowledge that can cultivate the scientific knowledge that sort out the solutions to real-life problems. Stem education comprises the education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics which is applied in nature and focus on the solution of problems that are scientific and reality-based. It is time to work on stem education in Pakistan and promote it at the primary as well as secondary levels. STEM centers should be established on a divisional basis which will enable the youth to confront challenging tasks and provide a solution for them. According to Haber mass when the state is unable to solve the problems in society then the state should steer the country on the different courses which can be done by updating our education system and steering the education towards stem education that could meet the current requirement of the society. By promoting stem education we will not only solve our problems but our youth would be able to compete in the global market that tends to reduce the unemployment in Pakistan.
