Future of education: “Education-as-Usual”

Alexander Weis
Edgecoin Blog
Published in
3 min readJun 4, 2019

This article is the first part of an analysis of the possible future of education. Links to all parts of the story are below.

1. What is “Education-as-Usual”

In 10 years, the global economy is demonstrating stable growth after a period of performance in the last decade. Demographic tendencies in an economically advanced country have weakened the workforce. But the new group of smarter employees from developing nations have already entered the global labor force and are making contributions to the enhanced productivity and world’s income equality. The amount of qualified personnel has increased by about 20% since 2018, and in general, developing nations will make the most significant contribution to the market of skilled personnel at this time. But do the aging, the total number of qualified personnel in developing countries is expected to decrease by 2030.

The transition in worldwide economic force from established developing economies towards emerging-market countries has closed global disparities between the countries. But the relative value of inequalities within countries has continuously grown. In this field, governments concentrate on bettering their local conditions and addressing the problems specific to their economic situation.

Structuring for the future

Conventional educational establishments are still considered as a reliable source of learning and the most efficient means of creating employment opportunities. Nevertheless, constant lack of qualified personnel in developing economies has placed high strains on the conventional establishments, most of which are unable to meet the students’ needs. This happens because of demographic transition, automatization and evolving industry requirement, which call for the requalification of lots of dismissed workers. Therefore, structural adjustment in the higher education sector happens, such as integration and liquidation of smaller universities. These factors can’t keep pace with the developing needs of students or don’t have the necessary infrastructure or scope to comply with the new disciplinary requirements.

In developed countries, a new generation of post-secondary workers, who can provide a quicker and more flexible education to meets the needs of the “new jobs,” appear to meet requalification needs. Public finance is flowing to these workers and “light touch” management concentrates mostly on job results, rather than internal quality management processes. Firms and whole industries cooperate with educational institutions to provide sectoral vocational training to ensure the security of capital production.

International talent influx

Nowadays, an “education surge” in advanced countries now sees lots of qualified workers entering the world labor force. Globalization and technological advances permit these employees to do the high-paying work across boundaries, while labor competition in their own country increases. There are the platforms, which combine opportunities and match the staff’s qualifications and accessibility with employers’ requirement. Such an option can reduce the uneven worldwide demand and supply of “innovative” skills in advanced and developing countries. The need for English language studying stays high in emerging economies, where most of their qualified staff are probably carrying out work for English-speaking enterprises from developed countries.

Test my skills

As a worldwide virtual workforce grows, problems of authentication, safety, and confirmation become crucial. Technological progress and substantial cost reductions have turned biometric authentication to standard practice for checking both workers and their qualification. Shared ledger technology (for example, blockchain), is used commonly to deliver a strong record of skills and capacities.

Innovation and investment

Governments stay the primary source of financing for K-12 and systematic higher education that preserves an expensive structure. Shattered efforts have not resulted in significant innovation in the traditional sector, also hindered by conservative legal environments. Private flows and risk capital has concentrated on innovative models and destructive alternatives. They are showing returns based on urgent market demands for scalability, adaptability, and urgency, and which lead to better economic performance.

If you miss some part or you like to reread other parts of this analysis, you can find all links below:

2nd part: Future of Education: “Regional growth”

3rd part: Future of Education: “World giants”

4th part: Future of Education: “P2P economy”

5th part: Future of Education: “Robo Revolution”

Based on the information from holoniq.com.

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