Abstract :
You must have seen the warning a thousand times: Too few young people study scientific or technical subjects, businesses can¿t find enough workers in those fields, and the country´s competitive edge is threatened. It pretty much doesn´t matter what country you´re talking about-the United States is facing this crisis, as is Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, India¿the list goes on. In many of these countries, the predicted shortfall of STEM (short for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workers is supposed to number in the hundreds of thousands or even the millions.