Education is too important to just be left as is or for us to expect that someone else will change it so that our children become better prepared for the future. I have learned in life that becoming comfortable or complacent is one of the most dangerous conditions we can experience in life. Only when we challenge the status quo or change the norm to become the new norm do we improve products or services.
We have been far too comfortable with the way we Educate children, which has been the same for centuries even though the world has little to do with what it was just 20 years ago. In the last couple of decades, we have seen the birth of Facebook, Google, Tesla, Uber, Alibaba, Twitter, Netflix, Paypal and many others, yet we continue educating our youngsters for old school jobs and thinking.
About 50 percent of the S&P 500 is predicted to be replaced over the next 10 years. In 1965 the average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 was 33 years, by 1990 it was 20 years and by 2026 it is predicted to be just 14 years. This simply means that the world is changing faster and that we too need to learn faster if we wish to accompany it.
Much of this change has been brought about by technology and entrepreneurship, which together have disrupted many industries, yet it’s done little to disrupt Education.
Ironically, the applied solution to this Covid-19 pandemic might just be the biggest catalyst for change in Education and we should look at this as positive. During the lockdown, we were compelled to examine new solutions to offer a school curriculum and many of these solutions might not simply go away once lockdowns are over. Many of them will be enhanced and improved to boost flexibility and relevance in education models.
These kinds of new Educational models will offer huge advantages over traditional models for our students. They will encourage students to engage in core knowledge that they are interested in at speeds they are comfortable with. These new models will not just offer knowledge but will incorporate skill development and community involvement as core attributes in the Education models. They will also offer opportunities to a wider geographical region and a larger economic base as they are borderless and more economical than traditional education. Employers will gain from receiving workers which are more motivated, skilled and better prepared mentally for fast learning and providing creative solutions to problems they are passionate about.
I believe investing in education and being a part of this new standard will be instrumental in providing a better future for us all.
I believe that online learning, hybrid learning models and the growing movement towards “No Degree Employment” will continue to evolve and expand, thereby, creating millions of new opportunities that we cannot even imagine today.
The educational models will be restructured to allow students to learn what they love, in a way they relish. This can be in peer-to-peer or hybrid learning methods. We will have students without student debt that will be ready to contribute from an earlier age than before. This new model will create specialists in droves with the updated skills required to change the world and propose solutions to old problems and innovate new industries not yet known.
This Educational change is exciting and as parents, governments, leaders and lifelong learners ourselves, we will need to be Brave and embrace it. Some movements are unstoppable and just too important for our future. Educational complacency needs disruption, it’s long overdue.
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