A Guide to STEAM Education in China

STEAM education in China teaches science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics through integrated, hands-on projects. Introduced around 2014 and encouraged by the Ministry of Education since 2018, it gained momentum after the 2021 double reduction policy. iResearch valued China’s STEAM education market at RMB 42.2 billion in 2021, up 35.4% year on year.

In the 1980s, the National Science Board (NSB) of the United States developed STEM education into a national strategy. Around 2014, the concept of STEAM education was introduced into China, triggering an upsurge of interest across the country. For education companies, STEAM also shapes how online courses are built: as an e-learning development agency, QPSoftware built the online STEAM coding platform of TechTrek.

What Is STEAM Education?

STEAM is the acronym of five disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. STEAM education is a comprehensive educational approach that integrates knowledge from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. It emphasizes the integration, diversity and inclusiveness of disciplines, and strives to break down the boundaries between them, while developing children’s ability to identify problems and solve them with their knowledge of the different disciplines.

What Are the Types of STEAM Education Courses?

According to the types of courses offered, STEAM education falls into three categories.

1. Scientific Literacy

Students are encouraged to learn about and explore everyday scenarios through scientific experiments, with a focus on scientific literacy. Internationally, scientific literacy is generally believed to comprise a basic understanding of scientific knowledge, of scientific research processes and methods, and of the impacts of science and technology on individuals and on society as a whole.

2. Robot Programming

With building blocks and robots as core teaching aids, these courses emphasize hands-on ability. Some software programming functions may also be provided. This category is mainly about engineering skills.

3. Software Programming

Students learn computer languages, such as graphical programming (Scratch and others), Python and C++, through software. Their computational skills develop as they learn programming languages. This category is mainly about information technology literacy.

Scratch programming on the TechTrek platform, developed by QPSoftware

STEAM Education Policy and Market in China

Since 2018, the Ministry of Education has expressly proposed “paying constant attention to the impacts of STEAM education, maker education and other education innovations on primary and secondary school education and curriculum development”, “gradually popularizing deep utilization of programming education and other types of education in education and teaching” and “constantly exploring new models of educational development under ‘Internet+’ conditions”, in several documents including the Highlights of Education Informatization and Cyber Security Work. This shows that Internet-based STEAM education and programming education are a key point of the information-based education reform of primary and secondary schools.

This became especially true after the “double reduction” policy of 2021. The opinions on reducing homework and off-campus tutoring for students in compulsory education (in Chinese), published in July 2021 by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, stopped the approval of new subject-based tutoring institutions, and set separate rules for non-subject training such as sports, culture and arts, and science and technology. When this article was written in 2022, STEAM education was expected to become a direction of business transformation for former after-school tutoring companies, improving the quality of supply and driving the development of the industry, while the demand for after-school STEAM education services would grow stronger. This growth in both supply and demand made fertile soil for the development of STEAM education in China.

According to iResearch, China’s STEAM education market was worth RMB 42.2 billion in 2021, up 35.4% year on year. By segment, robot programming took the lion’s share of the market (61%). By business model, business-to-consumer was the core market, worth RMB 39.1 billion in 2021, or 93% of the total.

How to Make Online STEAM Education Work

Building on the core features of STEAM education, online STEAM education can achieve good teaching results in four ways.

1. Diversity

With diverse and interesting teaching content, students are personally motivated to complete learning tasks in rich, engaging situations, by applying what they have learned to everyday scenarios.

2. Project-Based Learning

In project-based learning, students understand and master knowledge points better, and their role shifts from passive receivers to active explorers of knowledge. Meanwhile, the teachers’ role shifts from imparting knowledge to guiding and mentoring students during their learning and development.

3. Interdisciplinary Integration

STEAM education aims at an organic integration of interdisciplinary knowledge. It brings diverse knowledge and skills into a project situation, and evaluates students’ learning progress comprehensively, with full respect for the differences among students. E-learning can leverage all these advantages and present abundant, diverse learning resources (see our overview of e-learning trends). With adequate guidance, students learn and try new things with these resources, and their progress is evaluated through online tests and the programs they develop on their own.

Achievement tokens for each STEAM discipline on TechTrek

4. Gamification Teaching

Gamification teaching can be built on interdisciplinary knowledge. Interactive games based on the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge are simple games that cover knowledge points in subjects like science, technology, English and programming. Teaching games on different themes also include creative elements, such as different curriculum standards and popular science knowledge, so that STEAM education develops the overall abilities of students. More importantly, e-learning demands more attention from students, who must learn with little or no supervision. Gamification of education is a developing approach to increase learners’ motivation and engagement, by bringing game design elements into an educational environment.

Game-based learning in the TechTrek arcade

What Should You Do Next?

Whether you are a parent comparing programs or an education company building online courses, start from the three course types, then look for project-based, interdisciplinary and game-based learning.

QPSoftware designed and developed TechTrek’s game-based e-learning platform, where young learners solve STEAM coding missions: see the TechTrek case study. To create your own online STEAM courses, talk to our team about custom e-learning development in Shanghai.

References

1. 2022 Youth STEAM Education in China, iResearch
2. Third Lecture on STEAM Education Series: Models and Classification -https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1715420615845100313&wfr=spider&for=pc
3. With Online Education Giants Eyeing on STEAM Education, is a National STEAM Era Coming? -http://www.quwaifu.com/news/view/2122
4. The Construction And Exploration of “STEAM+ Programming” Online Education Platform, Contemporary Education Research and Teaching Practice (9th issue of 2021)

Frequently Asked Questions