A fault line is now strikingly visible post the COVID-19 Outbreak. Even after with so much technological advancement we have done from last 50 years but no one saw COVID – 19 Crisis coming. In this midst of changes and disruption that we will be witnessing post COVID – 19 Crisis, are our education system ready for the industrial disruption and new world order? We do not think so. Here's why:
Universities don’t teach industry-relevant material
Often times the course descriptions sounds useful and interesting, but halfway through the course you realize that it has been designed from a research perspective instead of an industry perspective. University train everyone to become researchers when only 3% of the students who graduate from an undergraduate program will go on to earn a Ph.D.
SOLUTION: Reverse the Current Structure of Syllabus - It should be 70% based on purely Industry Skills and 30% on Research Skills.
University blocks of education are too large
You shouldn’t have to spend n years of your life and Lakhs of Rupees to gain enough skills to become employable. There is a lot of waste and fluff that needs to be removed from university degree programs.
SOLUTION: Instead of offering 2 / 3 / 4 years degree courses, offer 3 – 6 months certification course on practical job oriented skills. If you want to learn about deep learning, you earn an education block for taking only courses on that specific topic. Bite-sized education is the way of the future.
Universities test and grade the wrong skills
Universities almost exclusively test memorization in one form or another. Understanding concepts is just having enough exposure to different types of problems. Problem solving is the skill student need Then why do universities primarily test and grade on memorization?
SOLUTION: Education should be almost 100% project-based because applying concepts to real-world problems, weighing the pros and cons of different methods, and making optimizations and improvements on a solution to a problem are the skills that are valuable in life. Who cares if you need to Google how to do things? This is what day-to-day life is like for a professional.
Universities are in a specific location
While some colleges offer online degrees, the vast majority of educational content taught by universities can only be obtained by moving to a specific city and attending classes at a physical location. This makes the content inaccessible for a large percentage of the population.
SOLUTION: High-quality and credible education needs to be available online so that anyone with an internet connection can consume it.
Universities require a rigid schedule
In order to complete university degrees in a reasonable amount of time, student require a long-term, full-time commitment. There is no taking the day off because student want to spend time on his extra-curricular skills, his / her start up, visit an industry etc.
SOLUTION: Education should fill the voids of our constructive, free time and should be available at our own pace. This would make education more accessible to people and would make learning sustainable over a lifetime. Make you own portal where student can access university syllabus or your own created certification course on Industry skills.
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