This past age is dominated by the thoughts of the Scottish social philosopher, Adam Smith, who in 1776 outlined in his article “Inquiry into nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations”, the concept that nation building is best performed by people, trained for and performing specialized tasks. (Accountants, Lawyers, Architects, Engineers, Teachers etc).
Sadly, without a change in policy from the government elite, our educational institutions continue to prepare students for an industrialized specialist world now offering diminishing employment prospects and in doing so runs the risk of an angry backlash that they just won't see comming.
That corporate job that matched the student's qualification on entry will have been outsourced to an Neo-Renaissance entrepreneurial firm by the time of graduation, forcing the student to join the ranks of so many graduates that must take lower paid work in fields unrelated to their study.
This generation of graduates, may eventually condemn us for making their path to accreditation, like ours (expensive, arduous and time-stealing) when a new, gap training, cost-effective and time efficient online learning option was so readily available to them. Others on the planet who have achieved their competency via the internet learning platform, have already established a head start in their careers that may take many years, if ever, for the 'industrial-aged' specialist to rectify.
Unlike the wealth creating industrialised mediums of the past, the internet (the new wealth creating medium) affords no currency to a 'piece of paper' without a similar level of applied skill and competency. The internet is blind to your credentials but is a wealth creating slave to your skills and abilities. Anyway, it is not your credentials that guarantees success in the global/information age but rather your problem solving abilities, critical thinking ability that can discern 'fact from fiction', your ability to adapt (un-learn & re-learn), your creative and innovative abilities and your life-long love of learning. If your 'piece of paper' failed to deliver these then whilst it may have successfully prepared you for the industrialized 20th century economy but it has certianly failed you in the globalized 21st.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the global media company News Corporation, spoke just recently of the fact that ‘we have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system' and in this context called for a reform of our (Australian) education system. Now, we will still need to have these specialist jobs performed but the way we train people for them is more likely to reflect the on-the-job apprentice/intern model than the locked away in institutions one.
The irony is that it was the inefficiency of the apprentice/intern model that created the centralised institution in the first place (because the expert was on campus) and now it is the inefficiency of the centralised institution that is creating the need for the apprentice/intern approach once more (because the expert is in cyber space).
We can learn on-the-job because the world's best knowledge resource will be available at our fingertips ... literality ... with the mobile phone connected to the internet and conected to the 'best in the world'. This training may even concentrate on highly micro-specialised area but the big difference is that the student is not looking to the profession as a whole of life career - just one of the many they will perform in their working life.
Furthermore, the student mind-set is to learn the skills of the current profession and by applying knowledge from previously skilled areas, develop cross-discipline innovations that they may exploit for their benefit or share with their employer. Educational institutions will still play a part in the new paradigm but the mind-set, functions and place in the learning process will need to dramatically shift. Fundamentally, institutions need to get out of the role of being the only authority (or censor) that controls the dissemination and transfer of information and find new roles and relevance (of which there are many) in the new paradigm. They will also need to implement a business model with greatly reduced dependance on governments with their conditional funding so that they can once more realign their mantra to truly serve the common good of the community and current needs of industry.
Whilst the current 'first-world' nations, that have to-date benefited greatly from Adam Smith's insights, debate and argue these educational paradigms, third world countries are embracing the new Open-online learning paradigm with obsessive enthusiasm. The economic growth and wealth creation abilities of countries like India and China should be a wake up call to Western Societies. The information/global age, with its online learning and skill sets, has created a level playing field that may well lift these nations to pre-eminence over those nations fixated on the old industrial age educational paradigm.
Education, in its own right, has the power to turn both third world countries into first and first world countries into third. The new learning mediums of the digital and now global age, will produce masses of Neo-Renaissance people unfettered by the outdated and restrictive dimensions of specialisation. It is these people who will become the new nation builders of the future.
Encyclopedia Britannica describes "Renaissance Man" as a person who "develops their capacities as fully as possible" and the Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "a person with a wide range of talents or interests" or as the author Margaret Lobenstine defines “A person who thrives on a variety of interests and who redefines the accepted meaning of success.”
With the learning source of the internet, these Neo-Renaissance people will have mastered the art of learning not just of specialist information. They will acquire new knowledge and gain comprehension in a fraction of the time previously required to master any field in the industrial age education system. In the time it takes for the industrial age learner to obtain their 'piece of paper', the Neo-Renaissance people will not only have mastered the learning in that field but will already be exploiting the applied benefits from the global internet community.
Neo-Renaissance people will not only learn from the best in the world but they will also collaborate with them in making the world a better place. Geographic constraints will no longer inhibit their learning and education. They will have mastered the skills necessary to cross-pollinate learning from one discipline to another, bringing extensive innovation and improvements to all fields of human endeavour. They will be whole of life learners motivated to living a life of significance. They will be the true entrepreneurs in the noblest meaning of that term Thomas L. Friedman in his book "The World Is Flat: Expanded Edition A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive".
He gives an account of "the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before - creating an explosion of wealth in India and China." These countries are acquiring the knowledge and skill necessary to succeed in the golbal/information age at breakneck speed, whilst 1st World economies continue to educate for an industrial age now past.
"With or without you - history is going to happen" PB
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