Neoliberalism and STEM education : Some Australian policy discourse

There is now a plethora of writing around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, in addition to the scholarship and practitioner domains, that includes policy and strategy statements both domestic and international, public and private. In overview, this article argues that STEM as the neologism for science education is in danger of narrowing science education's remit such that it is more about competitive national and neoliberal agendas for human capital production and innovation that underpin 21st-century global economies than it is anything else; in other words, the STEM pipeline. To this end, I describe some of the salient features of neoliberalism and its relationship to STEM as a precursor to the rest of the discussion that explores some of the Australian policy discourse on STEM. In particular, I review aspects of the Office of the Australian Chief Scientist as an instrument of government policy. Reviewing Australia's position enables the type of comparative work that contributes to a closer understanding of the imperatives missing in the science education literature where STEM is mapped back to important policy agendas.