Researchers outline a uniquely Chinese STEM model that blends engineering, AI integration, and hands-on learning with national curriculum goals

A newly proposed framework outlines how China can develop a localized model of STEM education that aligns with national curriculum while preserving the core principles of STEM. This Chinese-style approach emphasizes engineering-based learning, hands-on practice, and digital empowerment, while integrating cultural values and national priorities. It recommends integrating AI across school curricula, developing local STEM programs, and expanding extracurricular opportunities to foster innovation within the Chinese educational context.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has emerged globally as a key driver of national competitiveness, yet China requires a localized approach beyond transplanting foreign models to align with its national conditions, traditional culture, and the digital intelligence era. Amid President Xi Jinping's 2025 call to strengthen education's role in sci-tech advancement and talent development, plus the new curriculum's focus on competency-oriented reforms, a core question arises: How can China construct a systematic STEM framework emphasizing engineering-based, integrative, practice-oriented learning empowered by AI?

In a study published online on November 25, 2025 in ECNU Review of Education, a team led by Professor Yunhuo Cui of East China Normal University, working with colleagues from Hangzhou Normal University, introduces a systematic framework for building a distinctly “Chinese approach” to STEM education. The authors argue that while STEM has become a global engine of national competitiveness, China’s own STEM development needs deeper localization, stronger theoretical grounding, and more structural innovation.

“STEM education must move beyond simple transplantation of foreign models,” said Prof. Cui and his co-authors. “Our approach anchors STEM in China’s new curriculum reform, embedding AI across all school subjects and leveraging local and school-based curricula to reflect regional strengths and values.”

Their framework is built on four core principles: engineering-based learning, interdisciplinary integration, hands-on practice, and digital-intelligence empowerment. With these foundations in place, the paper lays out a multi-level strategy for implementation—adding mandated interdisciplinary learning time to the national curriculum, expanding localized school-based STEM programs, growing extracurricular clubs and makerspaces, and deepening partnerships with museums, laboratories, and universities. Together, these layers aim to create STEM learning that is more coherent, more authentic, and more equitable for students across China.

“This is not just a curriculum upgrade,” Prof. Cui added. “It represents a strategic effort to enhance China’s capacity for technological self-reliance and to nurture a new generation with creativity, civic awareness, and a strong sense of social responsibility.”

The publication also comes at a notable moment: the launch of UNESCO’s International Institute for STEM Education in Shanghai in 2025, which the authors say highlights China’s expanding role in contributing localized perspectives to global conversations about the future of STEM education.