STEM-Monitor
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STEM-Monitor
Publication date:
Monday, 1 June 2020
Country:
Belgium
Description:
The 'STEM-Monitor' of the government of Flanders (Belgium) is the main instrument for measuring the progress towards the objectives of the Flemish STEM strategy ('STEM-Actieplan 2012-2020). It measures the trends in STEM uptake in secondary, higher and professional education as well as adult education. These are compared with the 'baseline' schoolyear of 2010-2011.
The STEM-Monitor is implemented by the STEM Steering Group of the Flemish government. The Steering Group has develoed five main indicators. These indicators form the basis for the short and medium term objectives included in the Flemish STEM strategy. The 2020 edition of the STEM-Monitor also forms the basis for the follow-up STEM strategy ('STEM-Actieplan 2020-2030').
It's important to note that the STEM-Monitor utilises its own definitiation of STEM developed in 2012. This definition defines three main groups: (1) STEM deducation programmes (2) education programmes with a STEM component, subdivided in 'healthcare STEM' and 'light STEM', and (3) non-STEM programmes. More information can be found in the 'indicator' section. The full report can be found under 'background documents' (Van den Berghe et al, 2012, p. 36-37).
The 2020 edition of the STEM-Monitor includes an additional separate annex that provides an overview of STEM uptake in higher education for each of the Flemish provinces.
Objectives:
The Flemish 'STEM Monitor' measures the progress towards the objectives of the Flemish STEM strategy ('STEM-Actieplan 2012-2020'). In addition, the conclusions of the STEM-Monitor inform the objectives of the upcoming STEM strategy of the Flemish government ('STEM-Actieplan 2020-2030').
The STEM-Monitor is published yearly as a full report. The part focused on trends on in the various regions (provinces) of Flanders are published in a separate attachment to the report.
Relation to programmes, strategies, initiatives, etc.:
The Flemish 'STEM Monitor' measures the progress towards the objectives of the Flemish STEM strategy ('STEM-Actieplan 2012-2020'). The Flemish STEM strategy has five main targets for 2020:
- A minimum of one third (33%) of students choosing STEM in secondary education is female
- The proportion of students choosing STEM in professional bachelor programmes is 27.82% or higher
- The proportion of female students entering STEM professional bachelor programmes is 25.20% or higher
- The propition of students choosing STEM in academic bachelor programmes is 35.60% or higher
- The proportion of female students entering STEM academic bachelor programmes is 37.07% or higher
At the moment two out of five objectives of the STEM strategy have been achieved. Given the fact that the 2020 edition of the STEM-Monitor utilises data from school year 2018-2019 (with two more years to go) it seems realistic that all five objectives will be achieved by school year 2020-2021.
Conclusions:
The STEM-Monitor 2020 shows that the five main objectives of the Flemish STEM strategy (see background documents) are either reached or almost reached. The data covering school year 2018-2019 shows that:
- The proportion of girls that chooses a STEM profile in secondary education and professional education continues to rise.
- The proportion of girls within STEM profiles in secondary education has risen by 4% compared to the reference year (2010-2011) to 31.54%
- There was significant growth (2.8%) in the proportion of girls in STEM professional education in school year 2017-2018, but this growth has stagnated in 2018-2019
- The proportion of girls in STEM higher education (34.36%) has stabilised in recent years, but has risen significantly compared to the reference year (2010-2011)
- The fifth objective related to the proportion of girls in academic bachelors (37.07%) was already achieved but continues to rise further (currently at 40.97%).
- Overall two out of the five main objectives have been achieved.
Given that the data 'lags' two years behind (the STEM-Monitor utilises data from school year 2018-2019) it is expected that all five objectives will be reached at the end date of the Flemish STEM strategy.
STEM-Monitor
Publication date:
Monday, 1 June 2020
Country:
Belgium
Indicators:
The Flemish government utilises its own definition of 'STEM' (the so-called 'VRWI-definition'). This definition was developed in 2012 in a VRWI study by Van den Berghe & de Martelaere (see background documents). This definition differs from the definition of STEM used in most international publications (e.g. OECD's 'Education at a Glance') and Eurostat). An overview of the key differences between these two sets of definitions can be found on p. 14 of the STEM-Monitor 2020 report.The definition divides education programmes in three main categories:
- STEM programmes
- Education programmes with a STEM component (subdivided in 'healthcare STEM' and 'light STEM')
- Non-STEM programmes
The percentages reported in the STEM-Monitor refer to the first category of 'full' STEM education programmes. The categories are updated yearly. The data in each edition of the STEM-Monitor is compared to the reference 'baseline' school year of 2010-2011. The indicators themselves are subdivided in the following three categories:
- STEM uptake (students choosing STEM education in secondary and higher education)
- STEM 'throughflow' (student performance and choices in the transition from secondary to higher education and higher education
- STEM 'outflow' (graduates in secondary and higher education)
STEM-Monitor
Publication date:
Monday, 1 June 2020
Country:
Belgium
Data availability / API:
The data used in the STEM-Monitor is currently not available in an API or other raw data format.