Awareness of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) Education among Primary & Secondary School Students in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Abstract

STEM has become the main agenda in Malaysian Education to boost students' awareness about the importance of Science and Mathematics. As reported by the statistics from the Ministry of Education, the current percentage of students who have chosen Science and Technology as their own career path has significantly dropped. This situation is quite worrying since the vision of Malaysia to become a developed country or industrialized country cannot be achieved if the majority of Malaysians are not interested in STEM. Suppose this situation continuously happens, and nothing is done to solve it. In that case, the implication is that the government will have to depend on experts from other countries to fulfill the demands of local and global industries. Based on the yearly budget presented by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, almost 20% has been given to the Ministry of Education, and almost 100 million of it has been allocated for the empowerment of STEM. Therefore, youngsters must be seriously encouraged and motivated to promote their interest in STEM. This present paper discusses the level of students' interest in STEM during a STEM exposition or carnival conducted by an education institution, which was held in 2023 at Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. A total of 76 students answered the questions. The students involved were primary and secondary school students from Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK), Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC), Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT), Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jenis Cina (SMKJC). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The focus of this study was on the primary and secondary school students, whether they are interested in answering simple questions and their ability to get correct answers through their