The missing link of secondary STEM education in Hong Kong: Transdisciplinary integration of revitalizing vocational and professional education and training

In Society 5.0, Education 5.0 enables economic development with the resolution of social problems through advanced technologies and manages technological power appropriately in terms of a humanistic perspective. Education 5.0 is a future education model aiming to encourage student ownership to form a contemporary student-participatory curriculum with teacher mentoring. While STEM education as an Education 5.0 enabler is the key to realizing Industry 5.0 to personalize and rehumanize the manufacturing process, this paper will look at the need to better align secondary STEM education with Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET) initiative by transdisciplinary integration to facilitate Hong Kong better transiting to Industry 5.0. The objective is to examine the secondary STEM education development and its potential role and benefits of creating a foundation of transdisciplinary STEM secondary education in overcoming the current shortcomings of the vertical division of academic disciplines. It seeks to restore the VPET nature in the STEM scholarship and emanate from the secondary STEM curriculum renovations and transformations to tackle social and economic challenges, so the processes of STEM pedagogy will be changed significantly to adapt humanization empowerment by adjusting the methods and approaches to achieve new industrialization and help align with the call of Education 5.0 in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.