The Need to Improve Science, Tech, Engineering and Math Literacy

By emeadows
September 25, 2012

Even as people in the U.S. struggle to find jobs in the tough economy, some employers can’t fill positions that require technical skills.
“There is a serious skills gap in the country. Not enough students are majoring in STEM fields — Science, Technology, Engineering and Math,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “As a result, their skills don’t match those needed for the jobs that are most in demand.”
The article summarizes the thoughts of MIT professor Richard Larson, who thinks that widespread literacy in STEM is “as important to our 21st century information economy as basic reading-writing literacy has been to the industrial economy of the past two centuries,” notes the article.
“The ‘engineering mentality’ and approach are needed in virtually all aspects of society,” says Larson. “This is good news for both men and women whose career goals are more towards societal improvement than techno-gadget creation.”
“We all need STEM thinking skills,” suggests Larson. “But perhaps the most important reason for everyone to become STEM literate is to build a more informed citizenry. In that way we individually and collectively become better decision makers about all the options that our world and we face. STEM is not only for Ph.D. researchers. It’s for all of us!”

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