DEVELOPMENT OF STEM EDUCATION IN INDONESIA
Technology Development and Industrial Revolution 4.0
Technology transformed human life in one-way to another for a thousand years. For instance, the mechanism of agriculture that changed from using hands and simple tools to sophisticated machine. These machines help farmers to increase their production and rise up their income. In other fields, technology creates easier communication internationally. This impacts on fast and easy information’s transfers around the world and trigger the globalization. Jerald [1] noted that new technologies combine with demographic, political and economic changes have altered human’s work and social lives in ways of significant consequences for today’s young people.
The impacts of those technology developments were triggering the industrial revolution 4.0 (IR-4.0) that are changing human life. According to Hermann et al. [2], however, Industry 4.0 is the actual digitization of industry, which now covers a new, fairly broad conception, and includes new technologies and concepts relating to the organization of the value chain. Industry 4.0 creates a modularly structured smart factory, meaning the Cyber Physical System (CPS) monitors physical processes, maps the physical world in the virtual world, and decentralizes operational decision-making (autonomous machines). Therefore it need skilled human who can deal with it.
Those facts have prompted educators argue that the traditional curriculum is not enough. Schools must provide the students with “something new” as a preparation to face the 21st century. Indonesia realized this need. Thus we moved to the new policy. In Indonesia, it was developed a new curriculum that more emphasized on creating productive, innovative, creative, good affective human, through reinforcement of attitude, skill and knowledge in order to face challenges in the 21st century.
STEM Education As a Response of IR-4.0 Challenges
Mckinsey Global Institute (2012) stated an unleashing Indonesia’s potential that it is having 55 million skilled workers in the Indonesian economy today, it is predicted that Indonesia will need 113 million skilled workers in 2030, thus we need to improve quality and relevancy in education because it is critical to economic and social development (Ministry of Culture and Education, 2013). Moreover, Parray [3] suggest that Indonesia needs to improve the quality of skill workers by mastering digital technology. What should we do to response these challenges?
Nowadays, STEM is a sputnik moment that urges the education reform in US. Even though the implementations were not given a significant impact to the development country yet, the fame was spread out all over the nation and become a systemic educational reform. STEM has been called meta-discipline, creation of disciplines based on integration of other disciplines into a new “whole”. STEM education offer students a holistic experiences and knowledge of the world by integrating the disciplines into cohesive teaching and learning paradigm. In education, Bybee (2013) is not viewed STEM as an abbreviation of disciplines, but it has purposes. Generally, it triggers students to be literate in STEM. STEM education teaches all students learn to apply basic contents and practices of the STEM disciplines to the situations they encounter in life.
In the contexts of Indonesia, we bring STEM education into elementary and secondary school to be applied in the classrooms. This viewed not only as active response to international challenges and competition, but also as an answer of method and strategy to reach education goals in new released curriculum.
Indonesia needs to improve the quality of skill workers by mastering digital technology
(Parray, ILO, 2017)