Since the early 2010s, there has been a hype, or lie: our world needs more professionals in technology, engineering and science. Educators, politicians and businessmen promote the benefits of studying STEM at universities and working as a STEM professional, such as better incomes, higher social status and more career potentials. All the benefits of working in STEM should be debunked, but it is not the point of this article. Behind the promotion of STEM careers, there lies the anxiety of governments and corporations: they believe that there will be more technologies and innovations once there are more young scientists and engineers. This anxiety is mushrooming in both the West and the Anti-West. The US and its allies want to have more cutting-edge technologies as they intend to keep their hegemony over authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia. China and Russia want more technologies too, as their oligarchies hope to resist against the pressure from the West. In the imaginations of these politicians and entrepreneurs, if every student on the planet studies engineering, science or mathematics, we will have a technological revolution every year and having a summer holiday on Pluto will be possible before 2030.
This logic is ostensibly beautiful and reasonable. Unfortunately, none of the history, reality or theory agrees with this dream.
Let’s have a look at the history first. The time between 1850 and 1950 is widely regarded as a century of revolutionary scientific discoveries and technological inventions. Did most European and North American study STEM courses at universities at that time? No. The vast majority of them stayed for less than 9 years at school; finishing their education after finishing the primary school was common even in industrialised countries. Many outstanding engineers, inventors and scientists had never studied at the university level. As such, the century of discovery and innovation was not fuelled by STEM education at all.
The most recent history can’t agree with the promotion of STEM careers, either. During the Cold War, the Eastern Block educated more engineers and scientists than the Western Block. The US and West Europe had most young people educated in business, humanities and social sciences, which were usually perceived as easy and dull subjects. Unlike the Western countries, the Soviet government believed that the mission of university education was to foster more engineers. A phenomenon in the Soviet Union, which might appear brilliant to many thought leaders in the West, was that many of its political leaders held engineering or science degrees. In the fashionable logic promoting STEM careers and education, the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block should have smashed the US and its allies in technological innovation.
The reality doesn’t indicate that more STEM workers will bring us more innovations, either. China, India, Iran, and Russia are among the countries with the highest percentages of STEM graduates. But we have noted that all of these four giants have their strategical industries relying on substantial products and solutions from the US, Europe, and Japan. Those “great engineering projects” in China, which are frequently exaggerated by the media, can’t properly function without the supply from the US and Japan (read). For instance, although Chinese researchers publish the largest number of high-quality papers on AI, almost every single research project is a replication or application of a Western algorithm. The other three are probably even more underdeveloped than China in terms of technology. If most consumers in developed countries complain about the inferior quality of the cheap “Made in China” on Temu, they would most likely change their opinion after using some products by Indian companies. Russia has been obliterated from producing their own cars after being banned from purchasing critical products from the West; now they have to buy new cars from China. Russia has the best computer programmers and hackers on this planet, but until now, we rarely use any IT products developed in Russia. As for Iran, except for its potential achievements in nuclear weapons, we have seldomly heard of any technological breakthrough or scientific discovery originating from this country. Nevertheless, Chinese, Indian, Iranian and Russian scientists and engineers working in the West have brought us amazing products and discoveries. This phenomenon indicates that there must be other factors, instead of the quantity of STEM professionals, dominating the pace of innovation.
Asking students to study STEM and then work in STEM will not boost the quantity of technological innovations. An innovative society should encourage people to pursuit their natural aptitudes, i.e. talents. Encouraging people to “remedy” their mentality for STEM careers will convert the born-to-be artists, lawyers, musicians, strategists, businessmen, politicians and social scientists into mediocre engineers and researchers. When people are forced into tasks in which they don’t have any talent, the outcome will be shabby and the employees will be mentally wrecked.
The progress of technological innovation depends on an assortment of factors in addition to the quantity and quality of STEM professionals in a country. The failure of the Soviet Union in the technological competition against the US should have lectured us about this point. The same cases can be found in China and India. Before Mao’s death in 1976, there had been a large group of outstanding electronic engineers and physicists in China. But once China opened its door to the West two years later, they were astounded by the latest progress of electronic technologies in the US and Japan. The enormous reservation of electronic engineers and physicists didn’t effectively make China a world leader of the electronic technology. As for India, although we have frequently heard of companies in the US with Indian CEOs, there are few world-class corporations based in India. In other words, the Indian CEOs can lead innovative technology companies in the US because they are not based in India any more. The lessons from the Soviet Union, China and India should alarm the politicians and businessmen who are keen on pushing STEM education and careers for technological innovations. So, what should a country have to accelerate innovation? This is another massive topic to discuss.