MOOCs as enablers for prosperity and success in the fourth Industrial Revolution :

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum in his book ‘ The fourth Industrial Revolution’ launched at the Davis 2016 drew attention to the possibility that we have just transcended the 3rd Industrial Revolution into the beginnings of the fourth Industrial Revolution.

India benefitted from the establishment of the IITs in the 1960s ( the first set of B.Tech graduates from IIT Kanpur came out in 1965) and its products were ready to benefit from the 3rdIndustrial revolution. IIT Kanpur benefitted from the KIAP program supported by a consortium of nine US universities (namely M.I.T, University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Case Institute of Technology and Purdue University) helped set up IIT Kanpur’s research laboratories and academic programmes.
The IIT Delhi benefitted from UK collaboration, the IIT at Madras from German and the IIT Bombay was supported by the USSR.
But the future is about providing everyone who wants to learn with an opportunity to learn, at affordable costs, and MOOCs have amply demonstrated that this is the way forward. So a model that is gaining ground is for learners to adopt MOOCs as a low cost global flexible solution to massify tertiary education.
Apart from the well known initiatives such as Coursera, edX, FutureLearn and many others, in India the MHRD has taken an initiative named SWAYAM which stands for Study Web of Active Learning by Young and Aspiring Minds.
But with all the availability of a huge quantity of high quality learning materials as MOOCs, the pursuit of MOOCs by the age-appropriate learners has been rather low, and MOOCs have been actively pursued by experienced professionals for updating their knowledge.
In my view there are two broad reasons for this:
The first one is the lack of ‘recognition’ of these courses towards University credits, as most young people are chasing qualifications as a priority. One gathers that the UGC is taking some steps towards this.
The other is the lack of preparation by the learners to pursue MOOCs, for which there are several factors. The first and foremost in the lack of readiness is the inability to understand the contents presented in English. Learners from MOOCs would have to have English language skills in listening and reading at B2-C1 levels of the CEFR scale to negotiate their learning with the MOOC resources.
MOOCs in India, must therefore not be limited to English, but be available in several Indian languages and MOOCs in Hindi should be a very high priority. Like Diglot editions of many official documents, all new MOOC development must be simultaneously in English and Hindi as Diglot editions.
The other and even more important is transforming the traditional ‘passive and reluctant’ learner to an ‘active and inspired’ learner. Only a very small fraction of the student population who are expected to pursue MOOCs will fall in the category of ‘active and inspired ‘ learners which is built into the name and acronym of SWAYAM.
Without providing for these essential prerequisites, the attempt to deploy MOOCs as a solution for massify cation of higher education will be yet another failed experiment, having failed to anticipate all aspects of the MOOC ecosystem for learning. And we have heard ever so often that ‘ Failing to plan’ is ‘ planning to fail’.

But in addition to MOOCs based alternatives to traditional courses, if we have to prosper and flourish in the 4th Industrial Revolution, we must develop competencies which assure ‘future readiness’. According to ‘ The Future of Jobs’ report, which is a 167 page report released by the World Economic Forum in January 2016, { http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf } with the sub-title ‘ Employment, Skills and workforce strategy for the fourth Industrial Revolution’, there is a list of 35 core work-related abilities and skills organised as 9 clusters, which I have placed below for easy reference:
These are
1. Cognitive abilities:
* Cognitive Flexibility
* Creativity
* Logical Reasoning
* Problem Sensitivity
* Mathematical Reasoning
* Visualization

2. Physical Abilities:
* Physical Strength
* Manual dexterity and precision

3. Content Skills:
* Active Learning
* Oral expression
* Reading comprehension
* Written expression
* ICT Literacy

4. Process Skills:
* Active Listening
* Critical thinking
* Monitoring self and others
5. Social Skills:
* Co-ordinating with others
* Emotional Intelligence
* Negotiation
* Persuasion
* Service Orientation
* Training and teaching others
6. System Skills:
* Judgment and decision-making
* System Skills
7. Complex Problem Solving Skills:
* Complex Problem Solving Skills
8. Resource Management Skills:
* Management of Financial Resources
* Management of Material Resources
* People Management
* Time Management
9. Technical Skills:
* Equipment Maintenance and Repair
* Equipment Operation and Control
* Programming
* Quality Control
* Technology and user experience design
* Trouble shooting

Of these they have further identified the top 10 skills required in the global workplace in 2020.
It is worth noting that creativity which was listed at number 10 for the year 2015, has very rapidly moved up to number 3 in the list for 2020

1: Complex Problem Solving
2: Critical Thinking
3: Creativity
4: People Management
5: Co-ordinating with others
6: Emotional Intelligence
7: judgment and decision making
8: Service Orientation
9: Negotiation
10: Cognitive Flexibility

We can look forward to a future where we can impart new skills needed to a very large population over very short periods. But the action plan this time has to be more swift, less strangulating and in a more enabling environment.