Technology is rapidly changing, and learners are increasingly relying on learning and acquiring knowledge outside the classroom. Some educators are already worried that one day, there will be no students to teach!
What do you see are the things that will shape the future of education? How will it look like in say 50 years, or even less???
Dear Messaoud
In “The Idea of a University”, Newman (1858) summarised the post-Enlightenment university as “a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country”.
Many industries are running their operations online thanks to IoT. Improvements in machine intelligence are enabling automation to creep into new sectors of the economy, from book-keeping, online learning to retail. IoT has played a major role in the enhancement of communication, collaboration and the information lifecycle e.g. sharing, interpreting etc. Universities face a new competitor in the form of massive open online courses, or MOOCs which offer the context of the definition stated earlier.
Financially, Universities have passed most of their rising costs on to students by increasing course fees e.g. in America, course fees have increased by 28% in the period 2012-2017. Politically, the mood has shifted too. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama said that universities face a poor outlook if they cannot lower their costs, marking a shift from the tendency of centre-left politicians to favour more public spending on academia. In fact, academic institutions are recognising the challenge and working with MOOCs or providing on demand courses independently. Furthermore, some elite academics have made a telling transition, e.g. Coursera’s new chief executive, Richard Levin, a former president of Yale University
Recent research by Harvard Business School declared MOOCs as a potent “disruptive technology” that will kill off many inefficient universities. “Fifteen years from now more than half of the universities [in America] will be in bankruptcy,” the report predicted last year. Some universities are already adding digital classes to their syllabuses but the question is whether can universities compete against MOOCs? Personally, I doubt that. I think the concept of universities will shift towards R&D which is already competitve with the big 4 e.g. KPMG, PwC, etc.
In summary, quoting from Heraclitus "change is the only constant in life" but do Universities still have time?
Dear Ghaith,
Thanks for the elaboration. There are indeed challenges ahead, but technology does open many opportunities that were not possible before.
Dear Messaoud
The only worry is that other industries were taken over by outsiders (change agents/disrupters/innovators) e.g Uber, Airbnb, Amazon etc. I believe time is ticking as long as universities are reactive. Proactive actions are needed. Universities do not want to join Nokia, Blockbuster, Yahoo etc.
Indeed time is tickling. The real challenge is keeping that fragile balance between universities staying as providers of good education, and increasingly being pushed to becoming commercial/business institutions. The switch from labelling students as learners to customers is already infuriating many students and educationalists !
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