With advancing technology, the divide between the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, and the arts and humanities, is under challenge.
An educational model that enables students to gain exposure to both areas is likely to produce graduates that are more technologically proficient, but also more socially aware, and better at navigating the use of technology in the world.
The case is not that students must learn the one and the other, but that students would benefit from exposure to both.
STEM Provides the Technical Foundation
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics provide the foundation for acquiring technical skills and understanding how the world works physically.
These fields provide a basis for the following competencies:
- Mathematical reasoning, and the ability to analyze and solve problems,
- Technical design and the ability to innovate,
- The ability to analyze data, as well as read and interpret the physical world,
- And logical reasoning and problem-solving.
Such competencies are in demand in an environment where automation and digitalization are rapidly advancing.
The capacity to understand and engage such concepts not only facilitates a career in technology but also in other specialized areas like engineering, and computer science.
Arts and Humanities Add the Social Element
The arts and humanities take a different approach to the question of understanding the world.
Studying history, languages, and philosophy helps understand the social world, human behavior, and the various facets of culture and community.
Such fields of study provide a basis for the following competencies:
- The ability to think about human behaviors and interactions,
- An understanding of cultural and societal elements,
- The ability to analyze ethical issues and practice ethics-based decision-making,
- The ability to communicate,
- The ability to relate to, and analyze different perspectives,
- And an understanding of historical context and its implications for the present.
These competencies are required in instances when technology is not enough to solve a problem or address an opportunity, or when technology is only a part of a bigger endeavor that requires understanding people.
Why the Combination is Indispensable
The most compelling reason for the value of interdisciplinary approaches to education lies in the fact that many issues that societies confront require answers that span different disciplinary perspectives.
A pertinent example is the emerging field of artificial intelligence.
The technical capacity to create such systems involves a significant STEM component since it requires data, models, and computing power.
However, the question of what such systems are programmed to do requires input from the arts and humanities, since it deals with issues of privacy, ethics, employment, human nature, and behavior.
An interdisciplinary approach to education enables one to have a comprehensive perspective on such matters.
Creativity Can Make Us Better at Innovation
The capacity for creative thinking and innovation is increasingly important, not only to be able to come up with new ideas but also to implement them.
Exposure to the arts can provide a foundation for creative thinking, including the ability to conceptualize differently, engage unconventional approaches to a problem or opportunity, and think visually and interpretatively.
Such capacities can facilitate innovation when combined with the technical proficiency of the STEM fields, which is why STEAM (STEM with arts) is often suggested as a way to enrich technical education with a creative edge.
The Capacity to Communicate Has Value
As much as technical expertise is valued, such knowledge needs to be communicated to others for its application.
Engineers need to be able to explain themselves, and relate effectively to people that may not have technical expertise.
Data scientists need to communicate their findings to non-specialists in order to persuade decision-makers.
Programmers need to understand how people will interact with their products or systems.
And scientists need to communicate their research to the public.
An understanding of literature, languages, and communication is needed to be able to convey complex ideas to others.
Ethics Are Indispensable in Technological Advances
The question of ethics is increasingly pertinent, especially in light of advances in artificial intelligence.
The issues raised by such developments include questions of responsibility, privacy, employment, and rights.
The questions are not easy to answer, and the answers are not exclusively technical, as decisions need to be made about people and society.
An understanding of ethics, history, society, cultures, and human nature is often needed to formulate ethical approaches to decision-making.
What This Could Mean for South Africa
This assessment has implications for education in South Africa, as the nation needs to graduate citizens that are not only technically skilled but also socially aware.
The country’s economy requires technical expertise, but firms and businesses also need employees that can manage their people, lead their teams, negotiate effectively, and make ethically sound decisions.
This is not to say that students need to be exposed to both areas simultaneously, as an over-extended curriculum may fail to give students a solid basis in either.
Instead, there is a need for a model that enables students to gain exposure to a variety of competencies without losing specialization.
The same education environment could see students gain foundational literacy in multiple areas without pursuing degrees in all of them, enabling them to acquire broader perspectives.
Students Still Need to Specialize
There is also limits to how much students can pursue multiple areas, since they have diverse interests and ambitions.
The capacity to advance in complex areas like engineering requires a strong foundation in mathematics and physics, for instance, and students that want to pursue such fields will need to dedicate more time and effort to these areas than those that want to specialize elsewhere.
Therefore, the objective should be for students to pursue a broad but foundational education in multiple areas that enable them to collaborate with each other while also specializing in particular areas of their choice.
The Workplace Needs More Interdisciplinary Collaborations
It has also been noted that many fields now require multidisciplinary approaches to problems and opportunities.
Technology firms have diverse departments that can include programmers, designers, lawyers, and communicators, among others.
The health industry also requires a range of professionals that includes researchers, scientists, psychologists, and managers.
Other areas like addressing environmental challenges also require diverse expertise, from scientists, engineers, and economists to policy analysts and community leaders.
This suggests that students who can understand multiple fields of study can be more versatile in the workplace, and more valuable to employers.
The Case for Better Skills Definition Matters
Education debates frequently focus on how to ensure that students pick up the appropriate technical skills for the economy, typically without focusing on other necessary elements like communication, critical thinking, and ethics, creativity, negotiation, leadership, and problem-solving.
The combination of the STEM fields and the arts and humanities provides a balanced approach to building a diverse set of skills.
It is important for students to be able to function well in both the technical and social worlds, since the ability to work in both areas makes one more competitive in the job market.
South Africa needs scientists and mathematicians, as much as it needs social scientists, artists, writers, and teachers.
A Balanced View Is More Useful than the Two-Sided Debate About the Value of STEM and Humanities Education
The discussion on education should turn to how students can gain sufficient exposure to different aspects of education in order to develop competencies that enable them to work together.
After all, students in technology-related fields need to know how to collaborate with social scientists, and those in the humanities need to know how to engage with experts in areas like computer engineering and data science.
Students, especially in South Africa, need to remember that technical knowledge and social awareness can co-exist, and that both could help serve the economy and society.
