Building Skills for Life-Future of Education and Work

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What matters most when looking for work’ is a debate as old as higher education itself. Higher education is caught in a perplexing quandary. On the one hand, employers have expressed growing concern about the gap between education and employability. On the other hand, the cost of higher education is rapidly rising.

It should come as no surprise that public perception of higher education in India has deteriorated in recent years, and academic institutions are embroiled in an increasingly polarized debate. The health of many academic institutions in India is precarious, indicating that structural issues are deeply ingrained.

“One thing is certain: we are entering an era in which education is a lifelong endeavor. With today’s rapid pace of change, there are fewer and fewer jobs where you can expect the knowledge you gain in school or university to last you until retirement.” Says Anoop Singh Bishnoi, Chairman of The Doon School, Dehradun. “The point I want to make is that the people who work at jobs that may soon be automated do not currently possess the skills required for new jobs. Without intervention, this could lead to a “everyone loses” scenario in which high unemployment coincides with a large number of vacancies going unfilled due to businesses’ inability to find people with the necessary skills.” He adds further.

The solution is to rethink education from the ground up. Education models must evolve in response to changing industry demands. Students must be encouraged to freely ask critical questions. Current schooling and training models must be updated to focus more on enablement: shifting the type of questions from fact-finding to explanation-seeking. Lifelong learners are the designers and makers who must repeatedly create their own jobs; they must understand how to question in order to innovate. As a result, training opportunities must be redesigned not only to sharpen technical skills, but also to better integrate critical questioning skills.

“The future of education needs complete rebooting. We must learn to unlearn and relearn in order to survive and thrive in this technologically advanced era of education.” Says Anoop. 

Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

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