Living Smart

III SCIENCE & STEM EDUCATION 090 091 and a change in curriculum are far from adequate to promote STEM. Simply adding one or two STEM-related classes into a busy curriculum, or buying trendy gadgets for use in classes, without any long-term learning goals and follow-up, means that students never get the chance to consolidate their skills. In order to teach STEM classes effectively, teachers need to move away from the traditional content heavy, top-down lecturing style that is commonplace in SAR classrooms. Schools and tutorial centers are still too focused on using drilling in past exam papers as a way to prepare students for public examinations. This creates a very unhealthy competitive environment that Real learning stems not just from funding Prof. Mansun CHAN Chair Professor, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering A s the modern-day workplace evolves, it is clear that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) will play increasingly larger roles, prompting the government to provide incentives to increase STEM education at schools. A one-off grant of HK$100,000 was provided to each primary school to support STEM education and activities in 2016, and HK$200,000 to each secondary school in 2017. In his latest budget, Financial Secretary Paul CHAN Mo-Po allocated HK$500 million to implement an IT Innovation Lab program in the next three school years; each subsidized secondary school will be granted HK$1 million to help students build an IT foundation. There has been a shift in pedagogy to increase classes in computer s c i en c e , c od i ng , d i g i t a l med i a and networks within the standard curriculum, with the goal of creating an adept tech-savvy workforce that will run the economy in the 21st century. I wonder, with all this hype about STEM, whether it has become just another marketing term schools use to get additional funding? But fiscal input