Education — for what job?
What the development of automation, artificial intelligence and robotics means for education
The Second Machine Age is here
Since Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee published The Second Machine Age, several other pieces of data and reports point in the same direction — computers, robots and artificial intelligence are replacing humans in workplaces at an increasing rate, and in new areas. Carl Benedikt Frey
and Michael A. Osborne at Oxford presented interesting data suggesting that nearly half of today's jobs are susceptible to be going away over the coming decades. Much has been written and stated about this coming second machine age when it comes to markets, companies, jobs and innovation, but not as much on what education should do, given these new insights.
and Michael A. Osborne
What should we do about education?
The structural design of most educational systems around the world are designed to answer to the needs of the industrial revolution and the following industrial society. Factories were in need of skilled and unskilled labor and only some few needed some form of higher education. As we have seen over the past two decades, having a high school diploma does not in any way guarantee you a job. As a matter of fact, the number of jobs one can take on having only a high school diploma are decreasing, as many of these jobs are replaceable by machines and computers in various shapes, forms and sizes. The more educated you are, the less likely are you of having a job that is likely to be replaced by a machine.
More of the same?
Providing higher education for more people is only partly an answer to the coming revolution in the job market. A greater challenge is to reform what school and higher education provides in terms of knowledge and experience. Both the structure and the content of our current educational system need an update.
System design?
The structural design of the educational system does not often take into consideration the technological advancements and research in pedagogy of the past decades. Even if schools provide modern tools and materials, provide one laptop per child and educate teachers in how to use these tools in a proficient manner, the structures that surround education still stay. School is still mostly provided for in physical environments that are separated from its surrounding environment. The place for learning is separated from the places for living, working or socializing. Learning is thought to take place at a given time, when the school system provides for it. When times up, the school closes. Students are left to do homework, which in turn will be carried out differently depending on the socio-economical background of the student. We often have very long summer holidays, despite that it, according to Hattie and Miller seems that these prolonged periods out of school actually seem to decrease learning. The school day is structured into blocks, where different subjects and topics are taught separately. The choice of these subjects were most often chosen over a hundred years ago. What solid arguments are there to uphold a structural design of an educational system, given all this? Why do we continue to structure the educational content in the same way as we did, even if the environment, the society and the tools we use change?
Why education?
I believe what we really need to ask ourselves is why we have an educational system that we have. We need to re-frame the question of education and look to the needs of those who are in it, and will be in it, tomorrow. We need to take on a participatory design approach to education at large in order to see more clearly what solutions may benefit coming generations most. We need to understand the needs and constraints of education today and tomorrow, and build both structures and content designed upon this approach.
Taking on a participatory design approach on education means to drastically shift power structures. Most likely, students, teachers and school management will need more power over their work. And at the same time, regulation will most likely be needed to secure as equal opportunities as possible for students, no matter who they are, where they live, or what they want to do in life.
Life long learning
And one thing is for sure. The catchy phrase “life long learning” needs to be taken very seriously. Given the rapid evolution and change in society, it is very likely that most of us will have at least two, but probably more, careers in life. And why all education should be provided for early in life becomes more hard to answer for the more society changes. We need to provide opportunities for people to take on a second or third career in a simple and cost efficient way, and see to it that knowledge and experience is provided for in more of a “just-in-time” manner. Only then will it be possible for education to stay relevant in the long run.
Time to act
We are starting to see the first shapes of what a society built in the Second Machine Age might look like. And we see that this society is something very different from that of the industrial era. We know that both the length of education, the structure of education, the content of education and the timing of education needs to change and adapt. And we have the cognitive tools to do it, as well.
Someone needs to take the first step in order to create change. Even if it is a small one. Is it you?
