Mass education in 2040 : A new kind of classroom
Ever wondered how will the idea of mass education will be implemented two decades or so from now? Will school be a building where kids will go with books (digital; at least that consensus is almost there) or will there be home schooling ? Will there be a teacher and what will be his/her role? Will we be emphasizing kids to pursue dreams or there will be an entirely different world order when it comes to education? How will peer pressure work or will there be one at all?
Let’s put things into perspective. The rate at which technology is engulfing our life, the rate at which innovative ideas and solutions are being absorbed by masses and the pace at which mass education is modernizing itself has a big disconnect. A new technology takes one tweet to get introduced, couple of weeks to get early adopters, few months to get mature and deployed and couple of years to change the inherent human behavior and the associated industries. It happened with Facebook, it happened with AirBnB, its happening with Uber and umpteenth startups/ ventures are seeking a similar path.
The adoption at education segment is way different. Note that when I say education I mean mass education via schools, colleges and universities. Lets keep the doctoral schools and research domains out of this discussion or the purpose of education to build a more civilized society, curious citizens and hunt for ones who take the human race forward. The current discussion is primarily focussed on education methodologies totally aimed towards employment.
Mass educations are primarily the programs which are aimed at education leading primarily to employment of the masses. Adoption of technology at schools and colleges work at snail’s pace for varieties of reasons. A school doesn’t adopt a technology until it starts impacting masses to a stage where a model for mass employment can be generated. Furthermore there are issues of incentive, teachers’ skill set, their training and teachers exposure to evolving technology which collectively impacts the pace of technology adoption by schools.
Last decade has witnessed that the time it takes to graduate from an engineering college is more than the time it takes for technology to reach masses and thus job requirements change. Thus the break-even (time) between graduating and getting a relevant job has already been achieved. Any student entering this year will have no idea of the kind of job that he/she may be competing with when he/she graduates.
It’s no wonder that hardly any college around the world is offering any diploma around blockchain or bitcoins while a lot of people are already making millions in the business of bitcoins. This is also at a time when 1/6th of the world’s population has decided to go digital overnight!
With easier adoption of technologies like Internet of things, NLP and AI along-with visible cracks in education system, a revolution in the domain is imminent. A revolution which can lead to stage where artificially conscious devices will talk in natural language, understanding your behavior and educating you while adapting to your understanding will lead to new kind of classrooms. Your existing space could transform to be the new-age classrooms while the devices be your teachers.
This revolution may present new opportunities for students, teachers, businesses and societies at large. While businesses may continue to release the next must-have device, it would be interesting to see how curriculum and teaching methodologies integrate the new technologies. Societies will probably be debating a few fundamental issues, such as, if peers are important for well rounded education or the role state will play in mass education.
Nonetheless exciting times are ahead.