Of late, there have been talks about NEET, the new standardized assessment for medical and dental entrance examinations. While this comes as a relief to many aspiring students, our system, for decades now has been focused on standards and the means to improve the standards, without understanding the fundamentals of learning; that it is an organic process and not a linear one. The standards revolution has been putting many of our youngsters under tremendous pressure to follow the conventional norms of being certified to find a job. The reality bites hard when they realize that a degree does is no longer a job guarantee.
In a recent study undertaken by AJ&VG for a leading Australian client, it was found that most of the students expect to be able to become independent thinkers through the learning process.
Of the more than 500 respondents, about 80% of them feel that education should be able to help them become independent thinkers. This paves the way for high potential in the teaching fraternity; to build great teachers who can inspire students to learn a subject of their interest at their pace. The question is how far the government and industry will support the cause of being able to absorb the existing talent pool available to us. A recent WEF (World Economic Forum) study reveals “the future of jobs” in the world. A startling fact emerges from the study: a child who starts his or her education this year (2016) may end up doing a job, which does not exist in the world today. While we are unable to predict the immediate five years ahead of us, on what basis do we pressure cook the next generation, following a 200 or more years old public education system?
This calls for a radical shift in the recruitment process, along with a transformation in the education models that we have currently. Some of the long-term focuses discussed by WEF are the following:
- Rethinking education systems
- Incentivising Life Long learning
- Cross Industry and Public-Private collaborations
Two most disturbing issues with the current education system worldwide is the dichotomy between humanities and science and applied and pure training and the premium attached to tertiary-certified forms of education rather than the actual content of learning.
On the other hand, recruitment is going to be the toughest job on hand in the near future. According to WEF, the following are the drivers of change:
About the Author:
Ajeesh is Senior Marketer who has built high-performance teams to drive revenues for new and re-positioned brands across the B2B / B2C segments. He has a blend of the right and the left-brain, creative genius, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner than the average person. An educational evangelist and a brand champion he loves studying competitive landscapes and designing product vision and global market strategies.