Nigeria Joins BRICS as a Partner Country: What is in it for Nigerian Educational System or is it Another Neo-Conservatism?

Nigeria recently announced her joining BRICS, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. BRICS represents a powerful alliance of emerging economies. The BRICS bloc has been steadily gaining prominence worldwide, offering a platform for economic and political cooperation among developing nations. In the previous year, the bloc expanded by admitting Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. With Nigeria’s inclusion, BRICS now has ten partner countries. There is no doubt that Nigeria is a great country blessed in diverse measures - in natural resources, smart and intelligent human capital, wonderful climatic condition, etc. However, corruption and leadership deficit have become the bane that has been the icing on the cake in the nation’s democratic governance system. This bane in leadership has permeated every sector of the nation including her educational system. The formal acceptance to participate as a partner country underscores Nigeria’s commitment to fostering international collaboration, leveraging economic opportunities, and advancing strategic partnerships that align with Nigeria’s development objectives (Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2025). BRICS, as a collective of major emerging economies, presents a unique platform for Nigeria to enhance trade, investment, and socio-economic cooperation with member countries. This cooperation is expected to transcend into the educational sector to bring the needed development in terms of training as well as infrastructure. Nigeria looks forward to engaging constructively with BRICS members to drive innovation, foster people-to-people exchanges in line with our national interests and strategic priorities; educational exchanges to strengthen STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) which is the area this research is focused on. Moore and Smith (2014, p.5) defined STEAM education as a combination of five disciplines of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics into one class, unit, or lesson based on connections among these disciplines and real-world problems. STEAM integration introduces students to different disciplines with rich, interdisciplinary, real-world problems that engage their interest (Struyf et al., 2019), promotes a positive attitude toward STEAM subjects (Guzey et al., 2017), improves concept understanding (Wong & Wong, 2010), fosters higher-order thinking skills, raises academic achievement, and aids preparation for college and future career choices - pursuing STEAM-related positions (NRC, 2013). Trends in STEAM teaching and learning have been concerned with the need to provide students with opportunities to actively engage in the practice of scientific inquiry and reasoning. The aim of STEAM is to focus on developing 21st-century skills (e.g., problem-solving and critical thinking), increasing the efficiency of STEAM learning, and helping students make interdisciplinary connections rather than keeping disciplines solo, this no doubt has made STEAM integration to be one of the critical education movements in the past 10 years. This paper briefly discussed the concept and background of STEAM, outlined seven emerging issues in STEAM education and proposed emerging research questions under each issue that can be investigated to move STEAM to the desired destination. The seven emerging issues are: Integration of STEAM Curricular, Dialogue Patterns in Science Classes, Remote Teaching and Learning of STEAM, STEAM Learning Out-of-School-Time (OST), Sense of Belonging in Science Classroom, Universal Design Learning (UDL), Culturally Relevant Approach to Science Teaching and Learning. Nigeria is poised to leverage this platform (BRICS) to advance shared goals in trade and investment, energy security, infrastructure development, science, technology, arts, and climate change. This partnership also aligns with our national aspirations for inclusive growth, regional integration, and active participation in shaping a fair and equitable global economic order in line with our ethos of strategic autonomy. Neo-conservatism which is a political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market-capitalism (which is an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses) and an interventionist (which is a favouring intervention, especially by a government in its domestic economy or by one state in the affairs of another) foreign policy (Apple, 1998; Maguire et al., 2019) is poised to help bring to limelight STEAM collaboration with BRICS countries in terms of educational exchange programmes for both teachers and students. Educational exchange programmes provide opportunities for educators to develop their practice and bring global knowledge, skills, and perspectives to their classrooms and schools. Through exchange and professional learning programs, teachers improve educational outcomes and prepare today’s youth for success in a globalized, interconnected world. This advantage also goes to the students who engage in exchange programmes. Neo-conservatism has gained significant influence on education-policy making and debates about education (Neumann et al., 2020). This research focuses on the impact of conservative ideology on curriculum issues and methodological improvements in STEAM education. References Apple, M. W. (1998). Education and new hegemonic blocs: Doing policy the ‘right’ way. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 8(2), 181–202. Guzey, S. S., Harwell, M., Moreno, M., Peralta, Y., & Moore, T. J. (2017). The impact of design-based STEM integration curricula on student achievement in engineering, science, and mathematics. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 26(2): 207-222. Maguire, M., Gewirtz, S., Towers, E., & Neumann, E. (2019). Contextualising policy work: Policy enactment and the specificities of English secondary schools. Research Papers in Education, 1–22. Moore, T. J., & Smith, K. A. (2014). 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