Published on 23.11.2022 under General, Education, STEM education
MINT Autumn Report 2022
by Magdalena Hein
Again, the gap between STEM applicants and vacant STEM positions has grown significantly to 326.000. On the other hand, the proportion of women among the MINT workers has grown far too little - with a 4% increase among MINT academics and a 1% increase among MINT specialists. Immigration has saved us in Germany in the past 10 years. Without them, the gap would be more than twice as big today. In addition, the average skill level of students is declining and we are a long way from equal opportunities in STEM education. From my point of view, these are the main results of the MINT autumn report in a very condensed form.
What do we MINT sponsors have to do? The report addresses several fields of action from long-term to short-term, all of which make sense. In my opinion, there are particularly strong levers in the following areas:
Think MINT consistently in transformation contexts and develop co-creatively
One of the key success factors in both STEM educational work and the promotion of young STEM talent is the embedding of measures in the major transformation contexts. This change of strategy in terms of content and communication is very well laid out in the autumn report with the terms decarbonization, digitization and demography, but is not yet consistently successful because the report is still very much oriented towards subjects, job descriptions and industries. Even with the recommendations for action, he does not yet consistently call for the measures to be embedded in the major transformation contexts. It is now very important to rethink good and attractive solutions for embedding them in the major transformation contexts in a serious and methodically very good co-creation process, including with young people. For this I also propose to develop cooperations on an equal footing with movements like Fridays-for-Future or others.
Individual support and differentiation
Winning over uneducated groups for systematic STEM funding is essential. To achieve this, the education system as a whole must finally compensate for social disadvantages. Two teachers in the classroom as standard would allow for the required individual supervision. At the same time, we MINT sponsors have to differentiate extracurricular offers and also create very low-threshold offers, put the opportunities of MINT professions much more clearly forward and support teachers in specifically supporting students from educationally disadvantaged households. The feedback system mentioned in the autumn report, which addresses the individual strengths of students and encourages them to take STEM subjects, would also have a useful effect here.
Dealing with study doubts without taboos in order to increase study success
When it comes to the next generation of MINT teachers, we not only need more students, but also a completely different, taboo-free approach to and proactive support for doubts about studies in order to ultimately increase the academic success of many. In order for more young people to decide on the teaching profession, a long-term image campaign consisting of communication measures and system reforms is needed.
Finally live diversity
And last but not least, current debates, such as a few days ago at the Hochschulrektor:innen-Konferenz (HRK) on the initiative application on the topic of "promotion of women / equal opportunities in universities", also make it abundantly clear that we in Germany, especially when it comes to diversity in STEM promotion in all phases of STEM education and STEM careers are really at the very beginning.
Let's tackle it together! Let's bring MINT on the move!
You can find the MINT report here.
