Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM): A Case Study of Zimbabwe’s Educational Approach to Industrialisation

Abstract

One of the fundamental pre-requisites for Industrialisation is its stupendous availability, in a country ofskilled-manpower. In this regard, Zimbabwe has sought to leverage human resources, such as these, in order toaccelerate the process of socio-economic transformation. In March 2012, for example, the Government of Zimbabwe(GoZ) pronounced the ‘Second Science, Technology and Innovation Policy’ framework, which provided the twoMinistries of Primary and Secondary Education and Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and TechnologyDevelopment with the opportunity to implement the relevant spellings out of that policy document. The formerlaunched an update review of the national curriculum, in 2014, which culminated, in the crafting of the ZimbabweEducation Blueprint (2015-2022). That education-design plan has many facets. Chief among them is a deliberateemphasis on the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, subjects that are now knownpopularly by the acronym ‘STEM’. Classroom instruction, in those disciplines is meant to empower students with thecutting-edge skills that should see them participate actively, in both the local and global economies. The latterMinistry has rolled out the new STEM curriculum at the Advanced level, in January 2016. Through documentationanalysis, this paper, therefore, attempts to unpack the new curricular innovation (STEM), that Zimbabwe has devisedmost recently as one of her very best policy strategies towards achieving industrial development, in the foreseeablefuture.