New Paradigm Shift to STEM Education in the United Arab Emirates

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics represent powerful STEM education methods and concepts. STEM is the new paradigm shift in the education system that enables students to learn real-life scenarios and the proper thinking process to solve real-life problems requiring using integrated concepts. This type of learning improves students’ 21st-century skills to make decisions, solve real-life problems, learn lifelong, innovate, and think creatively and critically in solving problems. STEM education is new in the United Arab Emirates, and there are no or few types of research applied to it. The primary purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for STEM education to be taught in UAE schools that meets the objectives of the strategic action plan (2015–2021) of the Ministry of Education MOE. The introduced framework is structured in four levels. Each education level performs a relative difficulty, complexity, and depth hierarchy. Going higher in the qualification’s framework levels hierarchy means excellent challenges will be faced, advanced knowledge and skills are required, and high demand is expected of a student.