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Education in the 21st Century
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It is therefore urgent and essential for us to bring about such changes in our Education System as to prepare students capable of working in such an environment. The New Education Policy is more pragmatic, but does not properly allow for childern to progress as per their individual ability. It therefor needs to be further re-structured to allow for such differences in ability.
As Ken Robinson asks, “What is education for? – is it to produce University Professors? But are they really the high water mark of humanity? – or is it to prepare our youth for a ‘Good Job’ appropriate to their talent and practical skills, and also to develop social skills.”
As Scott Heartley argues – “We need to encourage blended learning of both technological / science subjects and of liberal Arts to enable a more comprehensive and better understanding and ability to meet future challenges in ways best for all”.
As Vishan Lakhiani says – “Ask not your children what they would want to be when they grow up or what career they want to study for?”. This is evidently not properly answerable when they do not know what their future working world would be like. Instead ask them “How would you want to contribute to the world, to humanity, when you grow up?” Thus getting them to see their work as something that adds meaning and contributes to the world in which they will be as they grow up, about developing the skills required for solving problems of the future.
It is well understood now that nearly 50 percent of the jobs of today will not exist ten years from today and the new jobs then available, about which we can only surmise today, will need new skills, and that all jobs that can be automated will become automated and those now working in such jobs will need to be re-skilled.
To enable youth to find jobs on completion of their education, it is necessary that educators ditch the outdated notion that education happens first and employment later and get employers involved in the design of the courses. Switzerland offers career advice and work experience to pupils as young as 12.
Short and focused on-line training courses can offer a more affordable approach for small firms. Distance Education and simulation games can also, help. Similar courses should also, be designed for adults who continually face the challenge of their present job becoming outdated.
Such approaches can be used not only to prepare youngsters for jobs, but to help mid-career workers to update their skills as employers’ needs change. Technology may have undermined long-held assumptions about the nature and permanence of jobs. But it also, offers some of its remedies.
We regularly hear of how the Graduates of our Educational and Vocational Institutes are not really fit or competent enough for their Professional careers and need further training. There is thus considerable recognition today that our System of Higher Education, especially Technical Education, needs a complete overhaul and a few steps, albeit very small, have begun to be taken in this direction.
Kaushik Basu, as Chief Economic Advisor to the Government, in his report on Education Reform, proposed the freeing of Education from licensing and of the need to institute methods to recognize and reward excellence in Education. Ofcourse, much more needs to be done urgently and also, a more responsible system of accreditation established. But we seem to have lost sight of the fact that growth of capabilities in Educational understanding and Vocational proficiency has, like everything else, to start from the ground up from the Play School and the Schooling stage itself, where systemic and drastic overhaul is even more important, emphasizing and encouraging creativity, learning by doing, or making something instead of just memorizing facts and passing tests.
Examinations today are not a proper measure of human intelligence; they only measure memory, and memorization does not equal understanding. They need to be revised to demonstrate creative thinking and orientation and better understanding of the fundamentals. Examinations should only be after fifth class and be designed to assess problem solving ability at various age groups in the open book/GOOGLE age.
Also, collaboration is a better way to learn than competition and it encourages an inclusive attitude. Cooperation has been determined to boost creativity and problem solving ability.
As Paul Tough writes in “How Children Succeed” – academic success is believed to be a product of cognitive skills – the kind of intelligence that gets measured in IQ tests. But the skills that see a student through college and beyond and which are predictive of future success have less to do with such cognitive skills than with the more ordinary personality traits or non-cognitive skills like curiosity, an ability to stay focused, an ability to control impulses, persistence and the resolve to do better and how to get along with other people.
Psychological intervention where applicable and teaching of new ways to solve problems and recover from failures will enable children to better attain success.
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It is being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” – Anatole France
“The best predictors of a future job performance are, general mental ability and practical intelligence, which is more than just IQ (IQ levels had only 0.4 correlation) and related measures of overall smartness and problem solving ability. This includes recognizing and focusing on what is important and not necessarily on what is urgent, and on social intelligence and conscientiousness” – Jeffery Preffer & Robert I. Sutton
Let curiosity lead the child and allow learning from mistakes. Problem solving like ‘Escape Room’ and ‘Breakout’ education games will help develop such skills.
“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” – Ken Robinson
Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of it and we should encourage the attitude of being positive and persistent.
As Thomas Edison is reported to have remarked on his finding the right wire to light-up his bulb only on his 1000th attempt – “I have not failed 999 times but have learnt of 999 ways that do not work.”
Children should be taught to realize that in order to be successful at whatever they choose to do, they should develop the attitude and ability to persist and persevere and stay with what one is doing, till it is done and to work with others.