Education in the 4th Industrial Age and beyond:

Background : 

We are being hurled into the 4th Industrial Age, and to quote from the very first of the following resource list we are ‘sleepwalking’.

” We are sleepwalking- Government, Schools and Universities-into the biggest potential disaster of modern times ” : Sir Anthony  Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham

Professor David Deming at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has argued that the very skills prioritised by linear thinking Schools and Universities are precisely the ones that algorithms are able to perform much quicker, more profoundly and reliably than humans.

The items listed at number 2,3 and 4 are spoofs and satires of our education model at the School and University Level. The Parrot’s tale by Rabindranath Tagore is amazing, and because his literary achievements were so high, his contributions as an educator have been ignored. Even his exhortation On “ where the mind is without fear….. “ as a possible goal of education has been ignored. 

The 5th entry in this list of resources is an amazing book, published in 2018 by Anthony Seldon alludes to education as the Cinderella of the AI story, but holds out the promise of AI allowing everyone to have an Etinder or Wellington education. In our context, successful implementation of the personalisation possible with AI would permit a high quality IIT- like education for everybody to make them creative and innovative Complex Problem solvers ( which are the top success skills in the WEF report listed at no.17. As a consequence of the implementation of AI in education, there would be no need of reservation for a class of people in institutions created for limited capacities. There is a view that the Bengal famine of 1943 was a man made one, with available food not being allowed to the people of Bengal. 

The present crisis in education has also been created by denying access to vast amounts of knowledge and resources that are abundantly available, thereby creating an industry of coaching and test preparation, a completely perverted approach.

In this context the story of Ecole 42 at item 19 is a glimpse of the future, which of course the AICTE and other similar regulators will not permit in India. But as Sugata Mitra in his research on self-directed learning has demonstrated, more and more learners will follow a SOLE model for their continuous improvement and lifelong learning. 

The 42 in Ecole 42 has been inspired by Douglas Adams who wrote in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.”

There should be a sense of urgency in preparing our youth for the future, which has been described in the 9th report listed here as an ‘avalanche’. We may call it a cyclone, a tsunami, an earthquake whatever metaphor we prefer, but we have to respond. Burying our head like an Ostrich is not an adequate response. Rather like the Giraffe we have to stretch our necks to see more of the emerging scene and then take a call.

In our cussedness to preserve the status quo of giving jobs to retired bureaucrats and fossilised educators, our actions are reminiscent of an anecdote attributed to the famous economist Milton Friedman, quoted below where he sarcastically and brutally draws attention to the real goal of a program ” building a canal or providing subsidised employment”.

This quotation is usually coupled with a colorful anecdote,and the details of the stories vary greatly. Here is an account from the economics writer Stephen Moore that was printed in the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Moore stated that he used to visit Milton Friedman and his wife, and together they would dine at a favorite Chinese restaurant:

At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”

Do we want to educate our youth or preserve the existing mostly irrelevant establishment ? The responsibility for the right path is upon the shoulders of the Independent Educator : the Teacherpreneur. This is the species that will most likely flourish in the future when the dinosaurs of the existing education system will become extinct.

The video listed at no.16 is a 15 minute video released in 2013, and most of its projections and predictions about the future are right. A very key statement there is “ Economics always wins.” The resources at no.17 and 18 list the skills for success in future. 

Here is a set of 21 resources that will help you formulate your own personalised strategy for preparing for the coming 4th Industrial Age and beyond. Please read on to appreciate what’s coming soon, and very near you:

1: The Digital Revolution : The impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Employment and Education : http://www.edge.co.uk/sites/default/files/publications/digital_revolution_web_version.pdf

2. The Sabre Tooth Curriculum: http://users.ugent.be/~mvalcke/OWK_1415/toetsing/thesabertoothcurriculumshor.pdf

3: Every curriculum tells a story: The Dragon Slayer curriculum : http://www.socraticarts.com/docs/sccwhitepaper.pdf

4: The Parrot’s tale by Ravindranath Tagore : https://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/gRabindranath_parrot.html

5: Anthony Seldon “ The 4th education revolution”: The Fourth Education Revolution: Will Artificial Intelligence liberate – Amazon UKhttps://www.amazon.co.uk › Fourth-Edu…

6: What’s worth learning in School? http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/15/01/whats-worth-learning-school

7: Sir John Gurdon Nobel Prize winner was too stupid for Science at School : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9594351/Sir-John-Gurdon-Nobel-Prize-winner-was-too-stupid-for-science-at-school.html

8: Intelligence Unleashed: an argument for A.I. in education: http://users.ugent.be/~mvalcke/OWK_1415/toetsing/thesabertoothcurriculumshor.pdf

9: An avalanche is coming : http://med.stanford.edu/smili/support/FINAL%20Avalanche%20Paper%20110313%20(2).pdf

10: Keynote by Stephen Downes on the six major features of emerging online learning : available at http://www.downes.ca/files/slides/2016%2006%2008%20-%20MtAllison.pptx

11: Teaching in the 4th Industrial Revolution: Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Armand Doucet, Jelmer …https://www.amazon.com › Teaching-Fo…

12: Education in the 4th Industrial Revolution: part 1:  http://www.21stcentech.com/education-4th-industrial-revolution/

13: Education in the 4th Industrial Revolution: part 2: http://www.21stcentech.com/education-4th-industrial-revolution-part-2/

14: Education in the 4th Industrial Revolution: part 3: http://www.21stcentech.com/education-4th-industrial-revolution-p3/

15: Graham Brown Martin : https://link.medium.com/PT39ezEuXR

16: Humans need not apply : https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

17: The top 10 skills that will land you high paying jobs by 2020: https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/the-10-top-skills-that-will-land-you-high-paying-jobs-by-2020-according-to-world-economic-forum.html

18: The future of jobs report 2018: https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018

19: A free teacherless University in France is schooling thousands of future-proof programmers: https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/qz.com/1054412/a-french-billionaires-free-teacher-less-university-is-designing-thousands-of-future-proof-employees/amp/

20: Say Goodbye to Knowledge workers and welcome to learning workers : http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2016/06/07/say-goodbye-to-knowledge-workers-and-welcome-to-learning-workers/#61182d4b4398

21: The 5th Industrial Revolution: When It Will Happen and How: https://devops.com/5th-industrial-revolution-will-happen/