" The world is changing so quickly; the future is more unpredictable than ever; technology is advancing at an alarming rate."
The overutilization of these modern-day maxims is not only tedious, but potentially damaging. Why? The unpredictability of our future has become so ingrained in society that it may inhibit us from even thinking prospectively. Such maxims are thrown around with no substance or security; we seem to have cast a dark cloud of uncertainty over our future. Thus, I intend to shed light on how our world will change or at least, how it should change. I think we are on the brink of 2 interrelated revolutions: entrepreneurship and education.
Needless to say, entrepreneurship has already kicked into gear; we’ve endured a proliferation of startups and the number of entrepreneurs has skyrocketed over the last decade. However, I firmly believe this was just the first wave. A second titanic wave of entrepreneurs is impending.
Consider the taxonomy of work: blue-collar (manual labour), white-collar (office) and the capitalists/entrepreneurs. As automation infiltrates the working world, it will inevitably follow the same trajectory. As a blue-collar laborer (manual labour), it’s a ticking time bomb before you are made redundant; more and more factories, manufacturers and customer service roles are becoming fully automated.
As automation overthrows the manual labourer, the evidence suggests it will percolate into the next division and dethrone the white-collar worker (office). Increasingly sophisticated algorithms, interconnected networks and intuitive technologies all prefigure the day when analysts, advisors, cold-callers and middlemen become displaced by automation. Take the Google Home smart speaker for example – its USP is that it can make phone calls for you through basic language programming. Inevitably, such technologies will master the art of communication and surpass human rhetoric.
Thus, as AI makes obsolete the blue-collar/white-collar worker, in order for man to remain valuable, they must stay ahead. What is ahead? The entrepreneur – the apex in the working world. Fortunately, we’ve created a society in which inaugurating a business is remarkably easy. (I initiated a night event company at University at the push of a button via social media). Novel technologies will facilitate the impending wave of opportunists. The 5G network, for example, enables one to operate technologies entirely remotely – I could fly a drone in Chile, whilst sitting on a beach in France. Overseeing a business independently will thus become increasingly accessible. The global small business (GSB) characterizes the businesses that minimize resources but operate globally. With the advancement of globalization and the popularization of entrepreneurship, I imagine this term will soon become normalised and perhaps replace terms such as startup, SME and MNC.
Traditional western education needs profound reformation. There is no longer value in becoming knowledge machines. What a computer learns in an hour takes a human 20 years. Schools encourage us to exercise the skills that computers are masters at: memorization, rote learning and following instruction. We threaten to obsolete ourselves. Of course, we need knowledge, but we also need balance. There is a stark imbalance in what skills we practice at school.
The current system was set up to cultivate workers for the industrial age. The industrial revolution required workers to perform menial, repetitive tasks. Factory owners wanted their workers to perform tasks without questioning their decisions. There was no fun in work. Since the purpose of school is to create employable workers, we are trained in a way that serves the factory – not the future. In other words, dissent at school is heavily deprecated. Fun is sapped out the life of children. We are conditioned to conform; we become trapped within the box and we are untrained from creativity. I could write a book on the flaws of western education it is so overtly backwards. I will offer a flavor expounding the fallibility of school in 3 sectors; principles, pedagogy and the process.
The principles need updating. The cliché we hear so often - ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ - is hugely important today, in a society and economy that is predicated on connectivity. You apply this principle to school, and it’s deemed cheating and you’ll probably be disqualified. You apply this principle to the real world, and you might be a handshake away from your next breakthrough partnership.
The pedagogy needs updating. We need to challenge a skill-set that is applicable to the 21st century – not merely memory. Let looks at math’s as a very rudimentary example to extrapolate across other disciplines. We are presented with questions in the form 5 + 5 = ? There is 1 objective answer that is universally agreed upon. Everyone gets given the same question and everyone must strictly follow the criteria. This approach is not translatable to the real world. In business, if you ever have a problem, there is never only 1 solution. The world is much more complicated than that, yet school renders us myopic and narrow-minded. Rather, we should ask how many numbers add up that = 10. This encourages lateral thinking and is significantly more pertinent and progressive. Our schools need to calibrate to a world that champions innovation and creative problem-solvers.
The process needs updating. We live in an age of super-speed learning. You can instantly learn about anything you want online and get a decent gauge of it after few weeks. I recently read an article about a teenager who drove to McDonalds by learning how to drive on YouTube. I am a university student and I spend more time writing fortnightly articles than on my actual degree. It seems regressive, therefore, to spend 20 years in institutional education. Too much time is squandered on unnecessary and outdated tasks. They need to streamline the entire process.
The education system will evolve in sync with the entrepreneurial revolution. The education system no longer serves us. As previously stated, automation now occupies the industrial world – not the human. Accordingly, people are now embarking on jobs they are passionate about. Jobs they truly love. Jobs which maximize fulfillment. Reading a dated and long-winded textbook, regularly, may not only be futile, but it stifles passion.
The current education system managed to weather the first wave of entrepreneurs. However, I firmly believe that the incoming tsunami of entrepreneurs will force an immense reformation in education.
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