Education: Today and tomorrow
Today advanced companies are using technologies to improve their productivity and performance to compete and expand their business globally. Supporting by information technology, they automate their processes, reengineer their structures, and consolidated their businesses for efficiency and increase profits. They start in manufacturing then moves to offices, where many jobs are standardized, automated and replaced human workers with robots.
Tomorrow almost all jobs will require knowledge in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) because these knowledge workers will serve as the engine to drive the global economy. However through this change, the “lesser educated” people whose labor skills are not part of the transformation to the knowledge economy will be left behind. This is a serious problem for many countries as they will see higher levels of unemployment, rising income inequality, and increasing labor tensions that threaten social stability.
Today many countries see this trend and take actions quickly. But some countries keep the attitude of “Wait and See” without understand that with the advancement of technology, things are happening very fast. For example, ten thousand years ago people lived in the hunter-gatherer era; they moved to agriculture era in about eight thousand years ago. Then they invented machines and moved to the industrial era about two hundred years ago. But changes are accelerated from industrial era and to Information era in just fifty years; and now everything is changing faster and faster. Without appropriated actions, the consequence can be a social and economic disaster. Ten years ago, Nokia was the largest mobile phone company until the iPhones were introduced; today Nokia is gone as iPhones dominates the mobile market. For twenty years, the personal computer helped Microsoft, Intel, and HP to be the three top technology companies until iPads were introduced; today the sale of personal computers has decreased and the big three companies are no longer the dominants. Two years ago, Flat screen were the top selling TVs but today the curved screen TVs with ultra-high resolution is the top; Last year most cars have computer and Wi-Fi built-in but next year these cars will be able to drive by themselves to wherever the owners want. In the next two or three years, people will talk to their cars about where they want to go, tell their kitchen to cook something; and tell the washing machine to wash their clothes with the Internet of Thing (IoT) technology. Soon machine with artificial intelligent will understand your command and perform tasks accordingly.
Today technology is changing, impacting and replacing many things, even replacing human with intelligent robots. The fact is in this new era of technology, minds are preferred over muscles as most jobs require specialized skills. But tomorrow this trend will develop society into a “class system” between “The educated” and “The lesser educated” and most people will be challenged on how they make a living and how they live their lives. According to the list of the richest people in the world, 85% of them come from the technology areas and most of them have college degrees. Among people in the “middle class”, almost all of them (88%) have at least a bachelor degree. It is clear that a college education is no longer a luxury but a necessity.
Today education is limited to a number of years in school but tomorrow education will be a lifelong learning. Education does not stop when a person leaves the school but the opportunities for learning will be available to everybody, all over the world, throughout their lives in different forms: full-time and part-time; academic and vocational, offline and online, in classroom and over the Internet, to help people learn as they must all be lifelong learners.
Today students learn from books and teachers, they memorize facts to pass exams and get degree. Tomorrow students learn from both teachers and on-line materials. Students use searching tools to obtain the necessary materials to learn because education is about discovering ideas and applying them. They will receive guidance from teachers but the role of teachers will be coaching, guiding and supporting rather than transferring knowledge. Today's education is about developing general knowledge but tomorrow's education is about skills acquisition. Today's education system is structured as separate “academic fields” but tomorrow's education is structured around “competency skills” where students are taught to apply knowledge not memorize them. Today's education model is based on “one-size-fits-all” where all students learn from the same curriculum with separated academic fields.Tomorrow's education model is designed to be a “personal-paced learning” where students develop their skills at their own pace and graduate when they complete the list of competencies.
Today's education system is based on a tradition that exists for thousand years where curriculum is developed by a group of teachers and scholars. They organize the training program into academic categories where students are separated into independent fields. Tomorrow'seducation system will be a cross-disciplinary learning and thinking, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math. This cross-disciplinary learning will focus on bringing business, technology, science and math together to foster more innovations. In this new education model, students will discover how they learn best and select various learning paths through specific courses designed to help them acquire the skills and reflect on their learning. After having the general skills, students will move to the next phase where they will go through an intensive “deep dive” under the guidance of teachers to a special learning program where they work in teams to develop “discipline-based” on specific area. The final phase will challenge students to demonstrate their ability to apply their knowledge to solve the real world situation.
There were discussions about the new education model in the past few years. Many like it but some do not; it is important to understand that with the advancing of technology, many things will change regardless whether people like it or not. An economist explained: “The market will dictate the future as people will do whatever they need to survive.” The fact is no education system is better than the others but it must adjust to the need of the society. Today universities must change quickly to support the need of the global economy where everything is happening at the speed of the Internet, where business is operated 24 hours and 7 days a week. In this competitive environment, education system must extend beyond the traditional classroom and rigid curriculum to provide the best training programs that produces knowledgeable graduates to support the development of a knowledge society. Universities that can change fastest will survive and thrive in this fast changing world.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
