CHALLENGES OF NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION: THE EDUCATION OF NEW GENERATION INNOVATORS

STEAM education is not new in the world. Many research and international projects aimed at developing and improving this field have been and still are ongoing. In view of the rapid changes in science and technology and the growth of interdisciplinary integration, educational strategists, scientists and specialists from different countries regularly update the content of STEAM subjects and their teaching methods. Educational strategists of our country have declared STEAM education as a priority area of education. The Ministry of Education emphasizes that it is particularly important to raise pupils' interest in STEAM and to train 21st century teachers with STEAM education-relevant competencies. STEAM education is an interdisciplinary approach to learning where rigorous academic concepts are coupled with real world lessons as students apply science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in contexts that make connections between school, community, work, and the global enterprise enabling the development of STEAM literacy and with it the ability to compete in the new economy. STEAM education emphasizes art and technical creativity as interdisciplinary access, combining it with a rational combination with the peculiarities of individual subjects. At present, in the context of particularly rapid changes in the labor market, it is difficult to predict which specialties will be required when current students complete their studies. It is forecasted that even 65% basic school pupils, when they graduate, will work according to the specialty that currently does not exist and that by the year 2020, due to new technologies and business models, the global labor market will lose at least 7,1 million job places. This means that new skills and specialties will also be sought for educated, intellectually engineered professionals. That means, it is important to emphasize at school not only the importance of the knowledge itself, but also the continuous development of various skills. There is a growing debate about the abilities that will determine your professional and personal success in the future. The factors contributing to the necessity for the development and improvement of STEAM education, STEAM education issues, their causes, what is done in STEAM in other countries and the national STEAM conception have been highlighted in this paper.