Digital age: Schools must adapt

there is growing consensus that as jobs become more automated and the use of artificial intelligence becomes commonplace, global education systems must be overhauled – and urgently.

Industrial disruption is taking place much faster than before, and according to the think tank McKinsey Global Institute, half of all jobs could be automated by 2055 as robots learn how to do the work of skilled professionals.  

According to many experts, schools are essentially teaching children to be redundant, because outdated teaching methods focus on skills which are no longer needed and tasks which machines can do better. This has been the case in other industrial revolutions, but the changes needed now are more radical – people must become as different from machines as possible.  

“Our education system is broken,” wrote Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, a global freelancing platform, in an opinion piece for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in December.

“The idea that you study maths and science and art in your youth as separate disciplines and then work to solve real-world problems in today’s economy, does not add up. Preparing students for tomorrow’s jobs requires breaking down the silos with education.”  

But he does not subscribe to the view that there will be a shortage of jobs in the future – instead, he believes, there will be a shortage of skills to fill those jobs.

“In 2018, we must finally realise that it’s no longer a matter of human versus machine, but rather human and machine working in tandem to solve the world’s problems,” he wrote.  

So what are the skills which people need to cultivate? Educators and business leaders believe that soft skills are crucial, and individuals must prepare for a lifetime of learning.

Humans also need to be self-motivated, adaptable and able to collaborate and work independently as traditional jobs evaporate. At present, more than a third of the US workforce consists of freelancers and, based on current rates, the majority will be freelancing by 2027.  

“Anything routine or repetitive will be automated,” Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics, said at the WEF in Davos earlier this year. “There is a need for soft skills, creative skills – the ability to find information, to synthesise it, and to make something of it.”  

Asheesh Advani, president and CEO of JA Worldwide, a youth education non-profit organisation, wrote in a WEF article: “It’s not a simple matter of offering coding classes for kids or providing reskilling programmes for the unemployed. Soft skills are critical to bridging the gap.”   

So what exactly are these skills? According to the Asia Society’s Centre for Global Education, these are the seven soft skills necessary if young people are to become adaptable adults:

- Critical thinking and problem-solving;
- Collaboration and leading by influence;
- Agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurship; 
- Good oral and written communication skills;
- The ability to access and analyse information; and
- Curiosity and imagination.  

Charles Fadel, founder of the global Center for Curriculum Redesign, argues that schools around the world have been tweaking their curricula but educational programmes “have never been completely redesigned to incorporate knowledge, skills, character and meta-learning”.

Meta-learning essentially means taking control of one’s learning.  

Traditional education does little to develop most of those skills, remaining stubbornly focused on knowledge-based teaching and strict adherence to rules.

The approach taken by progressive schools is seen as more appropriate in today’s world – the natural energy and curiosity of children is harnessed to encourage learning through more play, less homework, and no formal testing.  

Finland’s comprehensive schooling system has dominated Europe’s rankings for nearly two decades and is a good example of the success of progressive education.

Finnish pupils get high scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) covering science, mathematics, reading, collaboration and problem-solving.   

The use of technology to improve education has become key, and investment in the process, called EdTech, is expected to reach $252bn by 2020. 

Innovative schools are developing techniques which combine technology with a more progressive approach to learning.  

In New York, a school called Quest to Learn, which was founded in 2009, delivers the curriculum through the medium of games – some digital, some not.

It’s early days yet, but students so far have performed well in assessments of their ability to collaborate, think critically, and master 21st-century competencies.  

An approach developed in the UK is called “Mantle of the Expert”, which encourages children to form teams of inquiry and cuts across traditional subject boundaries to solve an imaginary task, like running a container port, excavating a tomb or rescuing people from a disaster.  

The Reggio Emilia approach, developed in Italy, allows children to develop their own curriculum based on what interests them most and opening up the subjects they encounter on the way with the help of their teachers.

Mariam Isa is a freelance journalist who came to SA in 2000 as chief financial correspondent for Reuters news agency after working in the Middle East, the UK and Sweden, covering topics ranging from war to oil, as well as politics and economics. She joined Business Day as economics editor in 2007 and left in 2014 to write on a wider range of subjects for several publications in SA and in the UK. 

This article originally appeared in the 1 March edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.