A closer look to STEM education across continents: insights from a multicultural panel discussion

The labor market increasingly demands workers with STEM skills, not only knowledge and skills related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but also transversal skills associated with STEM education; critical thinking, creativity and problem solving are some of the skills demanded in workers and that STEM approaches seek to integrate. There are different models of STEM education according to the level of integration of the four disciplines. Moreover, educational systems are different depending on the country and associated external factors that affect the teaching processes. For this reason, the implementation of STEM education differs between countries. In this context, it is necessary to exchange ideas and experiences among the different regions in order to identify best practices and work together for improving STEM education. This work presents the results of a multicultural panel that was organized in Turkey to explore the differences and similarities between four countries from different continents: Egypt, United States of America (USA), Spain, and Turkey.