The minister leaned forward and asked, “What are you building?” The girl responded: “a robotic arm.” This exchange did not happen at an engineering university or a fancy private school. This was a conversation with an 8th grader at one of 30 out of approximately 220 eligible government schools in Islamabad that the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFEPT) is using as testbeds for a STEAM – short for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics – enrichment programme before the concept is scaled to cover all schools in the federal capital area.
Even better was the atmosphere in the classroom minutes before the federal minister’s arrival. Children were working at round tables in groups of five to six and the classroom was buzzing with excitement and activity. Some were sitting, others excitedly going around their tables finding the Lego piece, sensor or motor they needed. Others were studying the manual for building instructions for the robotic arm. Up until 10 years ago, such enrichment activities used to be the exclusive purview of a select few private schools or after-school programmes by local ed-techs.
There are plenty of things to criticise every day, but occasionally we come across a bright spot that deserves to be celebrated. This STEAM education initiative for public schools in the federal capital qualifies as one of them. This programme was a priority for Minister Shafqat Mahmood but had been languishing in the purgatory that is...
Read Full Story: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/901428-steam-powered-schools
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