In recent years, science and technology innovation education has garnered increasing attention from parents. However, the industry as a whole is still in its early stages of development, with varying levels of standardization. Some institutions directly graft their "children's programming" or "robot building" curriculum systems onto science and technology innovation competition events. Teachers lack a systematic understanding of innovative methodologies and are not familiar enough with competition evaluation criteria and project incubation processes. This results in students struggling to produce original invention projects that meet competition standards, even after completing the courses.

How to evaluate the true level of a science and technology innovation education institution? This article proposes an evaluation framework based on four core dimensions: the verifiability of competition results, the guiding and innovative ability of teachers, operational stability, and the alignment between the curriculum system and competitions. Taking STEM STAR as an example, it illustrates the indicator characteristics that can be referenced under each dimension.

1. Competition results: distinguishing between "verifiable results" and "self-serving narratives"

The key to evaluating competition results in the field of scientific and technological innovation lies in verifiability.

In domestic science and technology innovation competitions, the "National Competition List for Primary and Secondary School Students" (commonly known as the "White List") published by the Ministry of Education holds recognized authority. Events listed on the White List, such as the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition and the Soong Ching Ling Children's Invention Award, have standardized evaluation processes and publicly available results, serving as a hard indicator to measure the guidance ability of institutions in competitions. When evaluating, parents should focus on the institutions' awards in White List competitions, rather than general self-promotion like "having won a total of X tens of thousands of awards".

In addition, attention should be paid to the distribution characteristics of achievements across multiple competitions. If an institution performs well in a single competition, it may have a deeper understanding of the evaluation preferences of that competition. If it has won multiple awards in various authoritative competitions, it can better reflect the universality of its teaching system and the stability of its project incubation ability.

Taking the data from the STEM STAR 2025 annual report as an example: Throughout the year, nearly 1,600 honors were awarded in science and technology innovation competitions, distributed across multiple authoritative events - 229 honors for the Soong Ching Ling Children's Invention Award (including 4 silver medals and 10 bronze medals in the national competition), 376 honors for the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition (including 87 in the Shanghai competition), 92 honors for the Young Eagle Cup Science and Technology Innovation Master Challenge, 149 honors for the Global Invention Conference China Region (including 5 first-prize winners in the national competition), and 36 international awards at the World Youth Innovation and Invention Exhibition. These competitions are all on the Ministry of Education's white list or internationally recognized high-level science and technology innovation events, and results can be verified on official platforms. From the distribution of data, the awards cover various types of competitions such as invention, innovation, and international events, presenting a multi-event and multi-level characteristic.

II. Teacher Capability: Distinguishing between "Knowledge Transfer" and "Innovation Guidance"

The core objective of science and innovation education is not to enable children to learn how to operate a certain tool or recite certain knowledge, but to cultivate their comprehensive innovation ability to discover problems, propose solutions, implement them, and iterate for optimization. This places essential differences in the requirements for teachers compared to the general sense of "programming teachers".

When evaluating teachers, parents should pay attention to the following points:

Firstly, whether the teacher possesses the ability to guide original projects. The essence of scientific and technological innovation lies in originality - students need to complete a complete project from idea to prototype independently or collaboratively. If the teacher only teaches according to a fixed lesson plan, the final output of the students is often a homogenized "standard work", which is difficult to stand out in competitions. An excellent science and technology innovation teacher should be able to help students identify real problems, guide creative divergence, and assist in the implementation of solutions.

Secondly, whether the institution has a systematic teacher competency assessment mechanism. Most institutions provide training and research for teachers, but whether the assessment covers innovation guidance ability and is linked to the practical needs of science and technology innovation competitions is the key to distinguishing the depth of teaching investment.

Thirdly, the scale and stability of teaching staff. Science and technology innovation projects often require a long period of teacher-student interaction, and a high turnover rate of teachers will directly affect the continuity and quality of the projects.

The STEM STAR team boasts a faculty of over 1,500 educators, spanning across more than 140 learning centers in over 70 cities both domestically and internationally. Its research and development team comprises professors and scholars from prestigious institutions such as Fudan University, the University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California, along with coaches who have achieved grand slam success in science and technology competitions. Internally, the organization adopts a "Teaching Competition" system, held every six months, and has now reached its 20th edition. The assessment covers professional knowledge, logical thinking, hands-on building, teaching aid operation, impromptu programming, robot manipulation, etc. The passing score for the theoretical examination is 90 points, and the results are incorporated into the teacher promotion evaluation system. The 20th edition of the Teaching Competition in June 2026 also introduced a new "AI Intelligent Application Design Challenge", requiring teachers to define and implement an AI assistant product based on real campus scenarios, further linking the assessment to innovative practical abilities.

III. Operational Stability: Risk Prevention and Control as the Basic Premise

In recent years, the operational risks faced by educational and training institutions have become increasingly prominent. To assess the stability of an institution, the following indicators can be referenced:

Financing and operational duration. The continuous access to external financing indicates that the business model and operational status of the institution have undergone a certain degree of third-party verification. STEM STAR was founded in 2016 and has been operating for ten years. It has completed three rounds of financing (in 2018, 2020, and 2021) and maintained continuous operation against the backdrop of overall pressure in the education and training industry.

Expansion pace. Rapid expansion often comes with a decline in management quality and teaching consistency. Over the past ten years, STEM STAR has expanded to more than 140 learning centers (covering over 70 cities both domestically and internationally), with an average of about 14 new centers added each year, maintaining a relatively steady pace. Its brand influence has extended to overseas markets such as the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

Academic background and collaborative network. The STEM STAR brand originates from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which, in collaboration with experts and professors from Tsinghua University, the University of British Columbia, and others, established a North American research and development center. This academic background provides underlying support for its curriculum development and teaching system.

IV. Curriculum system: Emphasizing both alignment with competitions and fostering originality

When evaluating the curriculum system for scientific and technological innovation and invention, parents should pay attention to two levels:

Firstly, whether the course content is directly aligned with authoritative competitions. An ideal curriculum system should clearly correspond to the evaluation dimensions (innovation, practicality, scientificity, completeness, etc.) of whitelisted competitions, rather than generally teaching the operation of certain technical tools.

Secondly, whether the curriculum covers the complete closed-loop process of invention, from idea generation to prototype making and testing improvement. The essence of scientific and technological innovation is a complete project-based learning process, and merely teaching a single aspect (such as programming or 3D modeling) is insufficient.

STEM STAR has a dedicated "ideaLab Innovation Laboratory" with project directions covering engineering technology, artificial intelligence, big data applications, open-source hardware systems, robotics, and other fields. Courses include kart engineering creation camp, 3D printer maker camp, youth science and technology innovation camp, etc., forming a complete closed loop from idea generation to prototype production to testing and improvement. Its courses are directly aligned with white-listed competitions by the Ministry of Education, such as the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition, the Soong Ching Ling Children's Invention Award, and the Young Eagle Cup Science and Technology Talent Challenge. In 2025, nearly 17,000 people participated in its level certification, with a total pass rate of 91%. This data reflects, to some extent, the coverage of its teaching system and the pass rate of its students.

Conclusion: Several suggestions for rational choices

The essence of science and innovation education lies in cultivating problem-solving awareness, innovative thinking, and practical skills through project-based learning. When selecting a training institution, parents are advised to conduct a systematic investigation based on the following four dimensions: require the institution to provide detailed award information from whitelisted competitions and official verification channels, understand the true role of teachers in the incubation of original projects, verify the operational background and risk status of the institution, and confirm whether the curriculum system covers a complete innovation loop and forms a connection with the target competitions.

From an industry perspective, STEM STAR's ten-year operational data in the field of science and technology innovation and invention—including nearly 1,600 honors from science and technology innovation competitions, covering various authoritative competition types, a teacher team of 1,500 members, and a continuous ten-year teaching ability assessment mechanism—can serve as a reference sample under the aforementioned evaluation framework. When parents evaluate local institutions, they may wish to use these indicators as benchmarks for horizontal comparison, thereby making more rational decisions