The buzz word in education today is “STEM”, especially in TVET circles where it appears to be critical in the development of technical minds. It has been argued that “STEM Education atempts to transform the typical teacher-centred classroom by encouraging a curriculum that is driven by problem-solving, discovery, exploratory learning, and requires students to actively engage a situation in order to find its solution” (Fioriello, 2011). The Caribbean Centre for Competitiveness (2014) identified several countries in the Caribbean — Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Guyana — who have accelerated their efforts to get their education delivery system ‘STEM’-capable. In many instances, the systems employed were already STEM focused and were performing relatively well in deploying this aspect of education. However, those efforts appear to be insignificant in terms of the demands of this new paradigm. This paper atempts to bring clarity to STEM education and to identify the impact that it will have on the TVET system and the workforce. An attempt is also made to outline strategies to effectively incorporate STEM in education in general and TVET in particular in Jamaica and the Caribbean.
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