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Senior High School (SHS) students have been advised to embrace the study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to make an impact in today's world.

Mr Kwadwo Oppong-Ansu, the Assistant Headmaster in charge of Administration at the Sunyani SHS (SUSEC), gave the advice at the launch and orientation of the 2022-2024 cohort of the Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC), which was on the theme: "STEM Education: The Key to Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)."

The SEC is an initiative that supports and engages participating organisations or institutions in a two-year collaborative cohort experience to strengthen their organisation's commitment to implement equitable coding using Scratch and ScratchJr which is under the auspices of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The 2022-2024 cohort had 88 organisations and institutions across the globe with SUSEC being the only institution from Ghana. 

The participants are engaged in a series of collaborative learning experiences that are co-developed and co-facilitated by Scratch and SEC partner organizations as they work to create self-sustaining communities and establish models for equity-centred creative coding resources.

Mr. Oppong-Ansu said it was critical for one to have a lucrative job and a successful career, but since that could not be achieved without some level of expertise, STEM education was thus essential because it equipped students with the requisite skills to succeed.

"Even if you are not interested in a STEM job, the skills acquired would help you in other fields," he said.

Mr Oppong-Ansu explained that STEM helped in acquiring critical thinking skills and instil solving and exploratory mechanisms, which bring success in a variety of tasks and disciplines.

He said through STEM education all the SDGs could be realised, because of its innovative critical thinking and problem-solving skills based on inter-disciplinary projects related to SDGs to attain sustainable development solutions.

"Our presence on earth is to make an impact through problem-solving approaches, hence embracing the study of STEM would propel the individual to make that difference that the world required," he emphasised.

Master Gideon Boakye Yiadom, a second-year Science student of SUSEC told the Ghana News Agency that Scratch was an interactive software that enabled students to code, saying ''it has allowed me to make animation at ease, unlike other programming languages that I need to master before using.''