‘Future-Proofing STEAME Education in South Africa’: Featured in University World News

The open-access book Future-proofing STEAME Education in South Africa addresses key challenges in science education, focusing on teacher training, arts integration, and entrepreneurship. According to University World News, the book emphasises the need to rethink teacher training, particularly for science educators, moving away from traditional ‘chalk-and-talk’ methods toward inquiry-based, cooperative, and problem-solving approaches. University World News notes, ‘If taken seriously by faculties of education, it could reshape the way teachers are trained – and help ensure that the country’s next generation of learners is ready to thrive in a dynamic and demanding world.’ Read the full news article on University World News.

Edited by Rajendran Govender, Josef de Beer, Rouaan Maarman, and Rajendra Chetty and funded by Standard Bank, South Africa, the book explores the integration of science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and entrepreneurship into education.

We recently had the privilege of interviewing the editors; read the interview here.

Book synopsis

This book aims to contribute to the discourse of finding innovative solutions to the myriad of challenges facing science education in South Africa. The book positions itself in the multi-disciplinary focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Entrepreneurship (STEAME) education, rather than the traditional narrow focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The chapters in the book explore the challenges and opportunities facing STEAME education in a complex 21st century, and at the advent of a society with a strong Artificial Intelligence component in its DNA. The leitmotif of the book is how engaging pedagogies could be utilised in the classroom to enhance self-directed learning – a sine qua non to future-proof South Africa’s science and technological advancement.

This is a book written by scholars for scholars and the target audience of the book includes academics and researchers in the field of science education and scholars engaged with innovative teaching pedagogies, particularly approaches that would enhance the achievement of learners in disadvantaged contexts.

The chapters in the book, although eclectic in approach, all contribute to the central theme of the book. Most of the chapters lean on textual analyses, literature reviews or concept papers which disclose new ideas before full validation.

The editors were responsible for reviewing the content, and provided feedback to the authors to make amendments. AOSIS then managed an independent and rigorous double blind peer review process. In accordance with the Department of Higher Education and Training’s guidelines, this book contains more than 50% of original research content not published before, and no part of the book has been plagiarised.

Read the open-access book here.