Universities need to reconfigure themselves for new challenges

Hyperloop is promising to change people’s mobility over the next 10 years, much in the same way as trains did in the 17th Century. Robotics and automation are all set to change assembly lines, manufacturing and engineering systems. Driverless cars and trucks are all set to disrupt the logistics industry. Completely. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are transforming commerce and business in newer ways. 

While people fear job losses and whole industry segments disappearing in double quick time amid all these changes, two big questions are emerging: 

(i) How are we preparing our children to meet the new skill and careers demands that will rise between 2020 and 2040? 

(ii) What new systems and institutions will we need to create a set of people who can lead the change and become the disruptor of these disruptions?

Asking these questions makes us realise how technology will disrupt the way we learn. Today, internet and bandwidth availability is increasing. Also, we are seeing the rise of new habit-forming applications that come with mobile devices. These help people to access and share information in ever new ways.  This means new learning opportunities, especially for the millennial and Generation Z – the biggest set of users of mobile devices and digital media. 

However, look at the institutional structures built to offer them formal learning and education. In the last 200 – 300 years, universities were built and have been functioning for creating armies of workers for the industrial age. But today’s information age demands new institutional configurations. 

Academics feel, the process for achieving mastery and the amount of time necessary to do so will vary from student to student and from competency to competency. This means, the time and process of learning will become variable and the outcomes will be fixed. 

This situation holds interesting possibilities for universities. While the traditional 3 – 4 year courses will still have takers – especially people serious about research and teaching as a career, a much larger number of people will enter colleges with a completely new set of expectations.

As people from newer social and economic groupings seek higher education, the number of such students coming into college with an education loan will also grow. Such students will seek quicker ways and methods to start repaying their debts. 

The cost of higher education is a key worry for them. So, they would look at taking courses or programmes in various modes and not necessarily only the classroom based education. They will like to use technology for learning and gaining competencies. 

A good number of learners will stay in the university for 12 – 24 months and acquire certifications that articulate specific skills and competencies derived; use this to enter a job, stay there a few years and then when the demand for higher competencies arise, will come back to the university to gain the same. Thus the cycle of learn – certify – work will repeat a few times.

They need to acquire agility to help students effectively understand how their education aligns to various career paths – and this across arts, humanities, technology or business; second, they need to create flexible short span certification courses and technology based systems where learning experience and learning journeys of students will evolve as and when they want. 

Institutions that are preparing for this eventuality, will find the shift smooth and they will be open to work with technology providers and aggregators to create this “always-on” learning ecosystem. 

And, those institutions that refuse to change and hang on to old configurations will find the change, to put it mildly, painful.