The Changing Landscape Of Education

Dr Ajeenkya DY Patil Aug 01, 2018

We are living in a very fascinating era – an era which is a mix of both, the analog and the digital worlds. This throws open huge opportunities for today’s students and aspirants. They not only have the traditional and age-old courses but also have an array of new & emerging courses to choose from, leading them to exciting and unchartered career paths.

Traditional education systems, with emphasis on engineering, medicine, and other such traditional courses, have been in play for ages now and have worked well so far. But times are changing and hence, education needs to evolve and keep pace with the advancing technologies

As per KPMG data, there has been a 25% spike in the demand for ‘non-traditional’ courses recently. On the other hand, demand for traditional courses has dropped – as per another data point, there has been a 60% decrease in loan disbursement for regular courses by financial institutions during the period 2010 to 2015 . These data points clearly imply that the landscape of education is changing – students and the industry are demanding new age courses, which will help fill in the new types of jobs being created in these changing times.

Online education has greatly helped expand the scope of education for Indians. According to a report by KPMG and Google, online education in India is expected to grow to USD 1.96 billion in 2021 from USD 247 million in 2016. The number of users is projected to increase six times, from 1.6 million users to 9.6 million users. This clearly indicates that educational institutions have to innovate and offer futuristic courses.

Institutes across the globe are prepping themselves and their students to be ‘Industry 4.0’-ready. This is the fourth era of industrialization, where automation and computers join forces. The need to balance technical knowledge with a deep understanding of humanity, something we call ‘New Humanities’ is critical to Industry 4.0. As per the EY report on ‘Future of Jobs in India’, 37% of the workforce mix in 2020 would be deployed in jobs that have radically changed skillsets. Dictation & typing experts which were in demand have now been replaced by content experts. Software experts have had to update themselves with newer technical languages over a span of just a few years.

Availability of different courses is finally showing in the purview of courses being offered by some universities in India and abroad. Some of the most recent additions have been - Digital Imaging, Ethical Hacking, Blockchain Technology Architect, Digital Risk Assessment and so on. Besides tech-related courses, there are other new courses being offered, which require empathy and human touches like Gerontology, Tea Tasting, Spa Management, Pet Grooming and others.

As India becomes the country with the world’s largest workforce in 2020, we must also aim to have a robust, well-developed and modern education system. Children of the future are going to be very different. They may not want to read through textbooks, they may not want to be in the confines of a classroom. In the next 20 years, an educational institution will be a very different place. The entire education system will shift onto a virtual space and the brick and motor module may exist only for an ‘experience’ factor. Since the jobs of the future are going to be very different from what they are today, the present landscape of education has to aptly change.

Disruptions brought in by technology are challenging all educationists today. We must evolve, innovate and hence, remain relevant. Books are going off the shelves with Amazon taking over that space, we have also seen major disruptions in the music industry among several others and the education industry is not far behind.