Transforming STEM Education to Prepare Future Generations to Face Global Challenges: A Narrative Literature Review
Keywords:
ducational Transformation, Digital Transformation, Future Generations, Future-Ready Competencies, Global Challenges, Interdisciplinary Learning, Narrative Literature Review; Sustainability; STEM Education, Teacher Professional Development.Abstract
The growing complexity of global challenges has intensified calls to transform education systems so that future
generations can respond effectively to uncertainty, technological disruption, climate change, inequality, and changing
labour-market demands. Within this wider agenda, STEM education has become increasingly important because it is
now associated not only with scientific and technical knowledge, but also with problem-solving, innovation, digital
competence, sustainability, and future readiness. This narrative literature review examines how recent scholarship and
policy-oriented literature conceptualises the transformation of STEM education in response to global challenges. The
review is guided by five questions: what global challenges are most frequently identified as drivers of educational
transformation, how transforming education is conceptualised, what competencies, skills, and values are considered
essential, what strategies are proposed for reform, and what barriers and gaps remain. The review draws primarily on
the attached papers and supplements them with recent, verified scholarly and policy literature. The literature indicates
that transforming STEM education is not limited to strengthening technical content or adding digital tools. Rather, it
involves rethinking curriculum, pedagogy, teacher preparation, assessment, and partnerships so that STEM learning
becomes interdisciplinary, problem-based, inclusive, ethically grounded, and connected to real-world issues. Across
the literature, the most frequently emphasised competencies include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration,
communication, problem-solving, digital literacy, adaptability, and social responsibility. The review also finds that
teacher capacity, equitable access to resources, curriculum rigidity, exam-driven traditions, and weak implementation
structures remain major barriers. Overall, the literature suggests that transformative STEM education is increasingly
viewed as a strategic pathway for preparing learners not only for future employment, but also for responsible
participation in building more sustainable, just, and resilient societies (Biseth et al., 2022; Čajková, 2021; Fan, 2025;
Reimers, 2020; Teach For All, 2024).
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
