There is a paragon of revolution that has taken over the 21st century and is systematically overthrowing how knowledge is acquired and inadvertently silencing and negating the academic scape and gradually putting it into a slow obseletion. This era is unconsciously breaking barriers changing the monopoly of how things are done and systematically ushering in a more liberal world. In fact, people of today’s generation should really be happy.
The traditional school system seems to be oblivious and unaware and does not understand that things have moved ahead and still teach people things that have little or no value to this century.
The impact and value of school after the 20th century into the 21st century continues to unconsciously wane off. The information age otherwise known as the digital age has brought about a huge transformation and a dramatic shift in how knowledge is acquired and subsequently putting this era of school far behind the century. There is a new dimension to what knowledge is in terms of its relevance to real life situations and for that matter the current digital age we are in.
The purpose of school is to train people with knowledge and skills for job and those skills unfortunately are becoming antiquated, they are no more relevant in this current technological world which is witnessing a huge skill transformation deviating from the traditional school system into a more digital learning system with different skill mindset away from the intellectual school skills.
The current era is dynamic and needs constant updation of skills to match up with the rising technological needs of the century, but unfortunately this is not gotten from the traditional school system as school is static and still hold on to outdated ideas and skills.
The advent of the technological revolution means that people who are deficient in knowledge of technological tools and skills will be aliens in their own world.
Traditional school has offered a lot of people with heavy decorated certificates, but the question is, are they relevant in this century? This explains why lots of graduates are unemployed and some will have to re-school themselves to acquire new skills to keep up with the century.
Acquiring new skills online continues to grow everyday. Research and markets, forecast the online education market growth as $350 billion by 2025, so is quite a thriving market for online learning platforms which are making huge money.
This century has made things really easy and has made us to understand that to execute a job or business you don’t need to have physical contacts with people and has made the world into a global village where the power of the internet rules and easily connect people.
Creating products or doing business digitally needs different skills set and can be done with lot of ease. And the skills needed for this can’t be gotten from school.
The onset of covid-19 will further affirm this status quo because most jobs will be lost and making those skills acquired from school irrelevant since a lot of people will see the need to rely on the digital platforms to acquire new skills to keep up with the century
With the growth in technology and digital learning and the desire to learn new skills that school will not offer, platforms such as, Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, Lynda, Udacity among others offer skills services to millions of people across the globe. Mostly these are skills that cannot be gotten from school but are relevant in this era.
But why will people choose to learn online?
- It is cheaper and more convenient.
Online learning is very current and updated and understands what drives the current job or business market, oppose to the traditional static school learning system. Besides the learning is available to you at your own convenience, you can be at the comfort of your home and easily learn. people are so busy with work due to high cost of living and might not have that time to spend 4,6 or seven years at the university acquiring intellectual skills they might not even need. Research indicates that 60% of internet users reported that online courses are preferable to fit their lifestyles and schedules
Even companies are now relying on online platforms to upgrade their employees skills. It is on record that about 80% of companies used online learning platforms in 2017, which has even continued to rise in recent years. Growing trend in global e-learning markets include, China, India, Thailand with more than 30% growth rate.
As far back as 2011, e-learning courses were the most popular learning technology used by 80% of employers and still remain so to today.
In the US research indicates that more than 60% of companies prefer learning new skills via smart phone technology.
Companies are now taking advantage of e-learning by utilizing it for re-schooling and training their staffs to up their skills- School is out of the place —And this has significantly impacted the growth of those companies and resulting in employee retention-unless of course if those employees are school products, they will be kicked out of job- they have archaic skills.
- Updating of Skills
New skills keep on emerging every day, and to stay relevant in the competitive job or business market, there is the need to updates ones skills and knowledge to stay relevant. Skills that were valued 20, 10 or even 5 years ago are no longer relevant currrently. School will offer old fashioned and static skill mindset.
- Difficult tasks are easily learnt
Digital learning makes is easy for most people to learn seemingly difficult skills with ease once they get personal interactions with the tutor or the online learning instructor. Algorithms of machines and technology are able to make learning intuitive. People who might be introverts and shy in asking questions in the traditional classrooms are able to freely interact with an online instructor or tutor for better clarifications. Also when the student struggles with a concept the learning platform can adjust the e-learning content to make it more intuitive to the learner.
- Learning is more fun with the digital platforms
The good news is that, learning new skills online is more fun than the somehow strict robotic style used in the traditional classroom setting. Learning digitally devices a technique known as Gamification which employs the technique of gaming but in learning context it becomes a process of learning for the learner in that case it has the fun of gaming which make the individual easily learn. It also employs the technique of using VR and AR learning. Virtual reality (VR) is a three-dimensional virtual environment that uses a headset or glasses to simulate realistic scenarios in the digital space, enabling learners to practice skills and understand the outcomes of their actions in a simulated environment.
Augmented Reality (AR) is educational feature aspects that enhance learning of abilities like problem-solving, collaborating to come out with outcomes to problems, and creativity to better prepare students for the future.
- Opportunity to identify skills and potentials
Digital learning gives people the opportunity to identify their potential and capabilities and picking the kind of skills that meets their dreams and aspirations by learning only those skills opposed to the traditional school system where people are pinned downed to go through academic torture and do rote learning otherwise known as chew and pour just to pass exams.
Summary
Just as Robert Kiyosaki jokingly put it; ‘school has fake teachers’, the real teachers are on YouTube. In today’s world knowledge has been liberated from one man’s or system repository of monopoly made easily accessible online through the power of the digital age, so anybody at any time can have any information you need which is readily accessible online through various online portals like, Google, Vimeo, Youtube, Bing, Yandex etc. Refusal to take advantage of the opportunities that come with this century and relying on intellectual academic skills will put one far behind the century.
Pingback: Why Failure is good – Dizcovaself