Education in the 21st century
A new United Nation's global study of education has found that a college degree is the most important asset to survive in this globalized world. According to the study, technology is changing the economy foundation of many countries in favor of more skilled workers. Greater skills requirements mean that more education is often needed in established jobs. In the decade of 50s and 60s, most workers did not need a college education to get jobs. Today 70% of jobs require a college degree while only 30% do not and most of them are either manual labor works or lower paying jobs. Global companies view workers with a college education as the most capable of adapting to the changing economy and job market. The study also found that in 1970s. workers with a college degree earned 40% more than workers with only a high school education. Today that has risen to 72% as most unskilled labor works can be outsourced to lower cost countries and left many workers in the unemployed list.
With globalization, companies are expanding their businesses to many countries, as they are hiring workers, they prefer workers with a college degree. The simple reason is beside the broad knowledge of a college education, most of them are more matured, more responsible, and fully developed their capacities than workers with only a high school diploma. Some people have argued that many jobs do not need a college degree since they do not utilizing any college skills, workers can build a career in vocational schools as it is cheaper and does not require four years of education. The job market tells a different story: Workers with a college degree earn higher wages, stay on the jobs longer, and perform better than the non-college degree workers. Even the manufacturing areas that require mostly labor workers have also undergone a similar transformation and require more college education. Some people argued that about 30% of these factory workers are over-educated. In fact, the study found that these college educated workers bring their education-enhanced skills to their jobs and are more likely to get promoted to supervisors and managers. Consequently, they earn on average about 50% more than factory workers with an high school education. Additionally, the study found those with college degrees are more likely to hold a steady jobs, keep their jobs longer, less likely to be unemployed, and more likely to get a new job faster after being unemployed. Outside the economics factor, workers with college degrees are healthier, live longer, and are more likely to have good family, be able to raise their children to be college educated, and contributed more to society. They are less likely to involve in crimes, less participate in anti social activities, and often avoid legal problems.
The study found a strong correlation between the strength of the economy to the availability of an educated workforce. With globalization, business competition does not happen within a country's boundary anymore but expand globally. This impact the basic economy of many countries, especially the one with a closed system and rely mostly on their own resources. In a world where technology is the key to solve many problems, the most successful countries are those whose focus are on openness with better education in technology. Today, key assets are no longer capital but knowledge and education is the main catalyst for economic growth. The goal of education should be on providing its citizens with the best education possible. The old concept that education only last 12 or 16 years in a formal, lecture-type education is already obsolete. The new concept must help people, not only in their youth, but throughout their entire lives, to continue to learn and succeed in a changing world. It requires a new way of thinking to broaden of the responsibility for “education” to include parents, industries, and government.
The study found that many countries are facing critical shortages of science teachers, engineers, scientists, and technicians. The problem is much more severe in developed countries because many of the most skilled people are eligible to retire but there are so few numbers of younger people are being prepared to replace them. It is important to emphasize that there is a global skills shortage, not a labor shortage. The most critical needed jobs are those require some level of technical knowledge, problem solving skills, and ability to communicate in a global environment (That is why a foreign language skill is important). Not long ago, workers must go seeking for works, some even have to relocate to another cities or another countries. Today works must go seeking for skilled workers, and wherever there are plenty of skilled worker, works will move there. Not long ago, many manufacturing works were relocated to lower cost countries to reduce costs and increase profits. This trend is about coming to an end soon because many manufacturing works are now be done by machines and automated devices, which costs much less than labor workers (Note: Machines and robots can work non-stop 24 hours and 365 days per year so they are much cheaper.) Future works will depend on skilled workers who manage and operate these machines. These people will use their brains instead of their muscles. As the need for more skilled workers increases, the competition for them also increases. High wages jobs create more supporting jobs and push the economy to higher prosperity.
In the past decade, the global economy have experienced many ups and downs which took away efforts to improve education in many countries. According to the study, the global skills gap has enter a new phase that it would be difficult to reverse. Today, about two-third of the millions of children in the world do not have access to good education system. 87% of them will not graduate from high school while a large numbers of good jobs require college degree as a minimum. If this situation does not improve soon, the world could experience a significant crisis of poverty, chaos, and possible wars. To avoid this, a broad-based education is needed. Education is no longer belong only to the “academician scholars” but require cooperation of parents, school, company, industry and government to ensure that education will provide students with the skills and abilities to survive this globalized market. Students must be taught technical knowledge, skills, and new thinking such as flexible and open-minded enough to enhance their employability. Parents must encourage their children to study and learn as much as possible in their pursue of knowledge. Schools must invest in new education programs, new learning process, not impede it just to protect their own positions. Company and industry must collaborate with schools to provide opportunities, expertise, and market knowledge to facilitate better education programs; and government must invest in education and set education improvement as the highest priority for future economic prosperity.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
