Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University in the 1800s' wrote a seminal essay charting a roadmap for education. He made the case for continuously updating how and what the students learn to keep education in step with the evolving society.
This is more relevant today in a world being upturned by technology. technology, today is transforming jobs faster than organisations can adopt. World economic forum research suggests that the critical skills required to perform most roles would change more than 40% by 2022. Companies are scrambling to identify the skills they need to stay competitive. This is one of the three top business threats for CEOs' globally.
Universities have to play a major role in preparing a skilled global workforce. It will require an ecosystem oriented mindset, using online offerings to extend relationships and partnering with other universities and content providers. It will require more than 3% of overall expenses on technology that is being invested in the education sector. Universities will require digital solutions to solve big problems in the education sector.
By using digital technologies universities can reach beyond their campuses to diverse global learners. It begins with adopting online learning providing flexibility and affordability that allows students to access smaller chunks of learning before committing to full-fledged programs. Technology-driven platforms like mobile offer flexibility to the learner enabling seamless for entering a new learning environment to picking up from where they left off. Using AI, universities can personalise education to millions for effective outcomes.
many universities have already seen the benefits of online programs. Many universities have adopted online learning to increase accessibility and affordability to working professionals. These offer a short set of courses that helps in learning specific skills to meet career goals and plugin certain competency gaps.
Universities can use technology to join forces and come together to create a common learning platform, supplementing their courses with other courses from top institutions. They could also pool their resources to launch a common credit or grading system, create virtual collaborative learning spaces, combine insights from a large network to shape the direction of the programs.
It would help to ease faculty shortages and connect digitally powered systems to seamlessly connect content experts from academia or industry to deliver custom learning programs to students worldwide. It would enable universities to leverage best minds in the industry and smoothen faculty exchanges between institutions.
this would also accelerate research among universities and discover cross-discipline insights into their research areas.
As skill needs continue to evolve rapidly in the workplace, we need greater industry and university collaboration. This could also lead to internships and study projects with partner companies.
The mission for education institutions is evolving rapidly with reach, impact and relevance being important. The institutions have to cater to diverse learners on a massive scale., offer short term courses to new skills, offer flexibility for learners to upskill throughout their careers.
Lifelong learning is the way forward and technology is the link, revolutionising the higher education as we know it.
Where Online Learning Goes Next
by Leah Belsky HBR OCTOBER 04, 2019
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1869/02/the-new-education/309049/
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