Engineering

Africa: Mahama wants re-engineering of university education curriculum

Noticias

Africa/ June 27, 2018/Source: https://www.myjoyonline.com

Former President John Mahama has called for re-engineering of the curriculum of University education in Africa to stimulate accelerated development if the continent is to remain competitive and relevant in the global space of skills acquisition and training.

He identified the mismatch nature curriculum bequeathed the continent from colonial mastership, which currently under-rights the content of syllabi at the Universities.

Speaking on the “Future of Work and Industrialisation” on the sidelines of the 53rd Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Busan, South Korea, Mr Mahama said churning out graduates of humanities for example in large droves would not unlock the quest for accelerated industrialisation in Africa.

It was on the theme, “Accelerating Africa’s Industrialisation,” which is underpinned by the Bank’s High 5 strategy including light up and power Africa, feed Africa and improve the quality of life of Africans.

He said stringent measures should be instituted to achieve a 70 by 30 parity in the sciences against the humanities to place the continent in pole-position to advance economically, socially and in the fields of science and technology, which is the catalyst to reaching accelerated development of the continent.

Mr Mahama said Africa was ready to break into the legion of industrialised continent, when the right pillars of development was activated and matched-up to the global competition even in the face of deployment of hitech artificial intelligence and robotics saying “we can start at our own pace and leverage to succeed.

“Rethinking Africa’s development paradigm will lead us to the desired destination.”

Mr Ken Ofori-Attah, Minister of Finance, also a panellists said stakeholders in Africa should pursue radically reforms in education pedagogy especially teaching programmes in entrepreneurship to jump-start changing the psyche of students to leapfrog Africa’s industrial.

He said political stability, investment in infrastructure as well as in technology, energy, macro-economic stability were essential.

Mrs Kanny Diallo, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation said frequent changes of governments and non-adherence to time-bound blueprints or development plans even makes Africa’s quest to notch accelerated development looking remote.

She insists huge investments in the agricultural sector and harnessing of the gains in the mining industry could be ploughed into the social services sector would enhance development in the agri-business value-chain to generate the necessary jobs for the youth.

She said long-term planning and solutions would assist the private sector to partner state institutions to absorb the defenceless and teeming youths with skills of engagements.

Source:

https://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2018/May-26th/mahama-wants-re-engineering-of-university-curriculum.php

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Can Virtual Reality Open STEM Education And Jobs To More People?

Sasha Banks-Louie

By: Sasha Banks-Louie , Oracle

Employers need to fill 1.6 million jobs in the US that require backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math by 2021, according to a 2016 study by the US Department of Education. That demand is spurring new approaches to STEM education that are designed to appeal to more, and a greater diversity, of students.

“Science educators know we need to stop teaching facts and figures from textbooks and start showing students how to apply the fundamental concepts of scientific methods to real-world problems,” says Dr. Becky Sage, CEO of Interactive Scientific, a UK-based education technology firm.

Interactive Scientific, part of the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator program in Bristol, has developed scientific simulation software, called Nano Simbox, which students are using to observe how atoms and molecules interact. Researchers are also using this technology to explore new theories, product designs, and drugs.

Employing tablets, virtual reality headsets and controllers, students can visualize atoms, observe how they behave in different combinations, and manipulate them for testing.

Dominique Skinner, a chemistry student at Queen Mary University of London studying biochemistry, used Nano Simbox technology and research to combine atoms and create digital models of the molecules for a plant-based line of cosmetics.

“I wanted to put science next to veganism, and veganism next to cosmetics,” Skinner says. “Nano Simbox allowed me to see how skin would react to molecules from animal proteins and synthetic chemicals that were harsh on the skin versus plant-based molecules that benefited the skin.”

New Approach to Learning

Interactive Scientific has begun experimenting with artificial intelligence to understand how students learn, and how applying machine-learning algorithms could guide their progress.

“Whilst our machine learning work is in its infancy we have already designed the software to help students understand complex, scientific concepts in a way that’s unique to their individual learning styles and encourages them to challenge their own thinking by exploring alternative ideas,” says Sage.

Traditional teaching approaches using textbooks and standardized testing tend to be less flexible, both in the pace at which students progress and how their understanding is tracked and measured.

Nano Simbox’s simulation software runs on Oracle Infrastructure as a Service, making it possible “to scale this really complex science,” says Interactive Scientific founder Dr. David Glowacki.

“We needed a system to help us monitor, log, and report on scalability in real-time,” says Glowacki, who’s also a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Bristol and visiting scholar with Stanford University’s chemistry and mechanical engineering departments.

Creating Opportunities

Traditional methods of teaching STEM can be a deterrent to some students. Females, minorities, and students from lower-income families are underrepresented in STEM education and related professions. According to the Department of Education study, that makes it harder to narrow education and poverty gaps, meet the demands of a tech-driven economy, and maintain US leadership in scientific research and innovation.

“Our goal is to open up lifelong science learning to everybody, whether you’re in grades K-12, studying at a university, or in a non-traditional learning environment,” says Sage. “And our hope for the future workforce is that inclusivity will be valued so anyone will be able to thrive in their working environment.”

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2018/02/20/can-virtual-reality-open-stem-education-and-jobs-to-more-people/#78f87b508874

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STEMming The Flow: What British Parents Value In Education

Pluma Invitada

By: Christopher Cederskog

Managing Director Europe for Wonder Workshop, creator of award-winning Dash & Dot robots

There are so many useless acronyms in the world that anyone would be forgiven for not knowing the meaning of most of them, but there is one important acronym that has been gaining momentum in global education in recent years: STEM. Despite the fact that the principle is now root and branch of the British educational system, 60% of parents don’t actually know what STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) stands for or means.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are now essentially what the ‘three Rs’ used to be. Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic are as important now as they ever were, but while they used to be the pinnacle of achievement, they’re now the bare minimum; what employers, and wider society, are now looking for is STEM subjects. But, while more than two thirds (68%) of parents think that proficiency in tech is as necessary a life skill as budgeting or learning to cook, few of them seem to know what this means.

Traditionally, STEM have been viewed as masculine subjects. With the rare exception, girls ‘didn’t do’ science or engineering, technology, or even maths, despite the fact that in my school – and presumably very many others – some of the top performing students in these classes were girls. In primary school and high school, it was OK to shine, but once you got to tertiary education the engagement dropped off. Consequently, by 2014, only 12.8% of the STEM related workforce in the UK were female. And that figure hasn’t really increased in the last three years. Why? Not because of lack of inherent ability in females, but because of skewed perceptions: if society doesn’t deem these sectors as viable for women to work in, how incredibly difficult must it be for an individual to succeed, even in these times of perceived gender equality? And if your immediate role model doesn’t know enough about STEM to encourage, then it becomes more difficult still. As they say ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’

 In recent research conducted by Wonder Workshop, it was revealed that despite so many parents paying lip-service to the importance of a technical education, when asked to value learning to code versus learning a new language, a massive 63.7% of parents of both boys and girls opted in favour of the language. The ironic thing being that coding is actually a language in and of itself, and one that is used globally, in practically every sector.

Of course, coding isn’t the only part of STEM, or even of a technical education – it’s just one of my personal areas of interest, which is why that figure caught my eye. But when you broaden the questions to take in technology as a whole, the main concern seems to be focussed on the amount of screen time a child should, or should not have, rather than what they’re doing with that time. Broaden the questions again, and ask about home engagement with all STEM-related toys, and only just over half (57.6%) of parents believed that STEM toys should be used outside of the classroom, while 42% said that their kids have STEM toys but they (the parents) sometimes don’t understand how to use them.

There are so many different decisions to be made when bringing up a child and so many priorities to balance, but if the UK is to succeed in holding its place among the world leaders, to forge a place among the technical elite, then children need to be given the opportunity to learn – and value – the skills that are being viewed as internationally important.

From doctors and vets to programmers and research scientists, STEM subjects open up a vast array of careers. And even if kids don’t go onto a career that uses STEM directly, the disciplines teach them problem solving and logic, and you can’t get far in life without those.

There are so many useless acronyms in the world that anyone would be forgiven for not knowing the meaning of most of them, but perhaps it’s time for parents to get to the root of STEM.

Christopher Cederskog is Managing Director Europe of Wonder Workshop

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/christopher-cederskog/stemming-the-flow-what-br_b_18455452.html

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