The disadvantages of traditional education have been well-documented of late, viz. universities are expensive, out of touch, and inaccessible to many students, to the point where nearly fifty percent of millennials lament that post-secondary education has not yielded the right benefits given the prevailing student debt situation.  Only 11% of business leaders believe graduating students are adequately prepared for the workforce.  For learners interested in core tech and tech-enabled placements, coding bootcamps that focus on reskilling and upskilling learners in short order, and other non-traditional education platforms have surged in popularity since the outset of this decade. Meanwhile, college applications have dropped substantially during the same period.

Drop the 4-year Degree; espouse the CBE model

I was involved with The Office of Education Technology (a subset of the U.S. Department of Education) a few years back, and one of the most intriguing projects we worked on was a feasibility study on potentially switching to a competency-based education (CBE) model vis-a-vis the age-old seat-time-based system. 

At a high level, the competency-based educational approach allows learners to advance based on their ability to master a skill or competency at their own pace regardless of the learning environment.

To unpack this topic, if you want to go to the University of Maryland state system, they prescribe that you must take at least three years of Math or four years of English, etc. They do not specify that you need to attain mastery in Math, i.e. in terms of proficiency of skills… but don’t you have to?!  I will dial in on High School Math for a bit where most students take classes called Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry.  In the seat time-based system almost all students take these classes at the high school level, and many students additionally take trigonometry, calculus, and statistics classes; and about two-thirds of those students end up enrolling in college.  The colleges typically administer a placement exam and it has been discerned that 60 to 70% of students are consistently below the threshold when it comes to Algebra and Geometry.  So the system has created these gaping learning gaps amongst students across Math, Science and varied subjects and it has been prevalent across the board for years on end.  Students have been struggling with algebraic equations or exponents but they have to move along as mastery of concepts is not a mandatory requirement in a system where you just keep watering it down…by keeping it seat time-based.  And the reality is that these students sat through Math class for so many years, but only a few of them have mastered Algebra.  I would make an argument that it is much more important to master basic algebra or pre-algebraic concepts than to have seen and practiced a bit of trigonometry here or calculus there and vaguely remember that it involves some formula or numeric statements but not comprehending what it is in the true sense or knowing how to apply it in real-life scenarios.

It is of paramount importance for us as a country to adopt a competency-based system and then I would add that regionally, nationally, and even internationally, if any student reaches a predefined level of competency, they will be bestowed with the equivalent of a high school diploma, or a college diploma, and the like. As a next step, we should work in concert with the industry (private/public sector) and graduate schools to get them on the same page concerning CBE.  The entire education system, universities and state systems alike, would emphasize preparing students and learners of all ages for the aforementioned credentials and the outcomes will be transparent no matter how fancy or revered a university is. If students do not reach the predefined level of competency (i.e. proficiency of skills), they would not make the cut and the credence of the educational institution would hold no bearing.  And, if someone else can figure out an innovative way to get students to that level of competency, then those alternative learning methods will have to be given equal weightage as well. 

There is a sub-sector in Ed-tech which focuses exclusively on career transformation and future of work wherein these companies are squarely focused on solving for this very issue, i.e. upskilling, reskilling and crossskilling talent with in-demand skills in the short order.  Let us use software engineering as a case in point, there has been an acute dearth of software engineers and programmers across the country.  I have been collaborating with some of the biggest tech companies and they have posited a dichotomy of skills in their new hire cohorts, a] the are young people graduating in hordes from some of the top universities in the country with computer science, computer applications, and software engineering degrees, but they do not possess the requisite skills to be productive at the workplace; b] there is a finite set of talent who are graduating out of competency-based learning systems, often espoused in what we refer to as coding bootcamps or skilling workshops, wherein these resources are well-versed in coding or programming skills and they have mastered them in a more experiential learning environment.  For some learners, it might take six months to attain mastery, for some learners it might take up to two years.  But once you get there, the learners graduating from a bootcamp or a skilling academy are oftentimes than not landing the best jobs.  From a university standpoint, Western Governors University (WGU) is amongst the largest online universities in the country, and it’s wholly competency-based.  I get asked, where you think Apple hires most engineers from or where Amazon or Google hire their engineers, most people would say: Oh, From MIT or Stanford; but in actuality, they come from Western Governors University.  The WGU model is competency-based and the average time to get a four-year degree in computer science is 2.7 years.

Here is a select list of lessons that colleges, universities, and even high schools could learn from the Ed-tech sector to create digital learning programs that better serve learners now—and long into the future.

Embrace Generative AI as part and parcel of Ed-tech Products

Of late, we have been developing several Generative AI-powered Ed-tech tools and learning instruments using ML, multimodal LLMs and NLP models in conjunction with adaptive learning content.  A few examples:

• AI-powered conversational learning assistants that help learners simplify and understand the coding process.  In essence, it’s a 4-step process to help learners write, explain, debug and seamlessly refactor code,
• An interactive ‘learn buddy’ that will prompt steps…interim steps to be precise to aid in solving a complex Math problem for middle & high school learners,
• A learning aid that assists an undergrad psych major in synthesizing concepts by expeditiously landing on pertinent references (esp. at the concept/sub-concept level) from massive research databases and scholarly repositories,
• In the context of complex subject matter like Allied Health or Health Professions, these AI-driven tools will help learners summarize intricate concepts in simple intelligible terms and instantaneously shortlist instructional videos that are curated on the fly to exemplify the concepts at hand. 

I am certain that the list of such Ed-tech tools that are in the works is endless.  I would profess that as long as Generative AI comes in handy as a tool to amplify the inherent ability of a learner, it’s more than acceptable, or even better if it aids in amplifying a slightly different innate ability of the learner.  Right now in Ed-tech at least, we are focusing on the mechanical component of intelligence wherein if one of these Generative AI-powered learning instruments can potentially free up a learner from many of the drudgeries of his/her learning process and allow for learners to be more efficient, i.e. is to work at the conceptual/creative level or just facilitate more quality interaction time between the learner and the instructor or tutor…it is considered a big win!

My earnest hope again is that not too many generations of students will pass through before this paradigm shift happens, it will likely transpire within the next three to five years.  I am confident that the proliferation of such next-gen Generative AI-driven learning instruments into mainstream education will happen for sure, and as a consequence, it will permeate and change for the better our educational processes.

Skills-aligned Learning Outcomes

The way students are evaluated in the traditional educational setting is pretty backward when it comes to preparing them for the future of work. There is a reason only a smattering of Ed-tech companies resort to grading as part of their learning structure—grades coerce learners to focus on short-term outcomes instead of meaningful acquisition of skills or deep learning.  Moreover, they do not necessarily prepare learners for how they will be evaluated in their future jobs. Instead, educational institutions should devise more compelling ways to encourage learning and provide feedback.

Project-based learning (PBL) has been evolving as the de facto way to create more useful incentives in the evolving education system. Most career transformation companies (tech bootcamps, skilling academies, et al.) are centered around the learner mastering a concept or a suite of contiguous concepts and creating a project or a catalog of projects at the cessation of each learning module. This model has so much value: it shows learners the real-world application(s) of the skills they are acquiring off of concepts/topics they are learning—helping them see (experience) why they should learn them. It allows the instructor to provide robust, constructive feedback akin to a Manager or Coach at the workplace, rather than a standalone grade. And learners walk away with something tangible like a portfolio of projects which they can incorporate into their resume. 

Yes, these are big changes. But if traditional educational institutions want to ensure they are preparing students for the future of work—and that they have a place in the future of education—then they will need to learn what’s working from the Ed-tech sector and make some moves to follow suit.

These trends may not necessarily signal the death knell of the traditional education system—I view them as tangible opportunities to create better and more comprehensive educational processes that foster mastery-based and lifelong learning. Having worked in the Ed-tech sector for about two decades, I have experienced how companies can pivot and provide excellent digital learning opportunities in a way that is more affordable, more convenient, and more aligned with the needs of the modern workplace…which I firmly believe is the need of the hour.