Many educational institutions now see the value and relevance of STEAM. The Bendigo Tech School has adopted STEAM as the basis of its education programs. Templestowe College has taken the debate a step further with the with the addition of entrepreneurship to create ESTEAM.

Part of the problem is that the STEM imperative is supposed to lead to innovation and innovation is not clearly understood. Simply put, innovation is the successful commercialisation of invention.

The entrepreneurship and enterprise activity that goes into successful product development is not only a wide capture of business and commercial acumen, but also includes a range of soft skills in visual design and branding. These skills are essential to create products which appeal to the different needs and wants of consumers. Without arts capabilities, you have a pile of useful inventions that will never be produced or find a market.

It is the arts that understand, shape and gives purpose to STEM.

The arts are essential to any holistic technology program. While some people see STEM and STEAM as interchangeable terms, we acknowledged they are inextricably linked.