As stated in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013 – 2025 (Preschool to Post-Secondary Education), the Ministry of Education STEM has set the roadmap for strengthening delivery of STEM across the education system. Three measures have been undertaken, i.e. raising student interest through new learning approaches and an enhanced curriculum; sharpening skills and abilities of teachers; and building public and student awareness. Despite the plan and efforts put into STEM programme since 1967, the 60:40 Science/Technical: Arts Policy has never been achieved due to five key factors:

• Limited awareness about STEM

• Perceived difficulty of STEM subjects

• Content-heavy curriculum

• Inconsistency quality of teaching and learning

• Limited and outdated infrastructure.

 

The first wave of the STEM roadmap was started in 2013 and aimed to be completed by 2015. It focuses on strengthening the foundations of existing programmes and encouraging upper secondary and post-secondary school students to enrol in the Science stream. The blueprint is generally welcomed and supported by the public and private sectors. STEM-related initiatives were run by governmental agencies, institutions of higher education, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social communities, with or without the consent from KPM. This leads to multi-level redundancy of objectives, resources and energy invested in supporting the STEM roadmap but without impactful outcomes. Hence, the genesis of the concept of establishing the Malaysia Movement of STEM, which aims to synergize the resources, expertise and motivation of various entities in Malaysia. 

 

Formation of the Malaysian STEM Movement

 

Movement is defined as a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social or artistic ideas. Placing this definition in the context of this concept paper, the movement of STEM is formed through a group of individuals, agencies and institutions working together to advance their shared passion on STEM programmes for the country. The synergy gathered through the movement will gear Malaysia forward through STEM-dominant education. The objectives of the movement are:

• To drive the passion in fundamental subjects in STEM

• To nurture excellent scientists for the country

• To instil students and parents about the importance of science subjects 

• To develop a career path for scientists