Slouching on the sofa and taking easy your next day college assignment or a workplace project with old skills and passive solutions keeps one ahead-Is it true? Try to ask yourself in the light of the present where everything has stopped except an impinging virus. During COVID-19 lockdown, there were some moneymakers who not only earned, but feed their families. Such workers, i.e. TikTokers, Bloggers, YouTubers etc., have gotten the essence of this digitalized age. And acting likewise to meet the demands of this age. These skills can polish even more if combined with the quality education of this age. Let’s take one of the neologisms of Industry 4.0: Education 4.0.
Phases of Digitalization
During 240 years from 1780 to 2020, the industrial revolution has completely overhauled the systems of countries. It has urged them to respond in changing global environment. After 70 years of 1780, computers came into life and exactly 30 years after their discovery, most of the education system tends to rely on it. And now the internet is in the hands of every little clan to old age member.
After passing 18 years of education from a reputed Public sector university of Pakistan. The author has faced a more than 6 month transition period from school to work. That was stressful, especially in pandemic times. After getting attached to online earning platforms. She realized that the period she studies in belongs to the 2.0 Education where students fight for a 4 out of 4 GPA. They are supposed to learn the art of cramming outdated notes around their 4 or 5-year degree program. And come out like non-skilled graduates. Indeed, the lack of pedagogical training and its evaluation system is the root cause behind it.
According to the study of Khokhar and Javaid in 2016, teachers resist learning new things in fear their students already know what they do not. It is also reported that there are more internet users from students’ level community than pedagogues. In this scenario, it is obvious to find a 10% hand full of people who could shift offline platforms, to online, as per the recent study of Hasan, Rehman, and Zhang, 2021 in the Pakistani context. Further, they found a meager percentage of students enjoying proper internet facilities. Despite the government’s intervention of introducing Teleschool TV channel. The question is what our other partners are doing to prepare their youth for modern industry. India, has aimed to adopt New Education Policy. And acquires to adopt disruptive technology usages in High schools. For example, the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial intelligence, Cloud computing, 3-D printing, Robotics etc. Besides western machinery usage, it aims to change its existing pedagogy and evaluation system. So that, teachers could enhance data analysis skills, project-based and personalized learning of the learners. All these steps admit aligning the existing Education system with the wave of Industry 4.0.
Does SNC content enough?
Developed countries like Finland, Germany, Netherland, are experiencing no physical boundaries of classrooms and physical presence. Further, Asian partners like Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Bangladesh aim to acquire new models of the education system. For that, they intend to start skills and vocational education training (VET) during and after college. Therefore, Pakistan’s policymakers need to access Single National Curriculum (SNC) 2020. That either it builds a learning based environment that teaches the way how to learn. Undoubtedly, the intention behind this policy is positive and want the well-being of the future generation. But mere good intention cannot produce effective results if strategy is not aligned with. The complete transformation of pedagogy and use of modern technology needs to be ensured. As it can produce even better out of the same old content of books. Reaching towards a conclusion, one thing is debatable and needs a generous answer. The question is, if Pakistan is ready to adopt Industry 4.0? What would be the productivity of labor in adopting new disruptive technologies? Similar hypotheses were tested in an Indian study that estimated a negative relationship between labor productivity and modern technology. Thus, Pakistan can use such analysis to identify its diving depth. And Education is the foremost steering wheel to enter into the fourth age of industrialization.
Conclusion
Come long story short, this article intends to examine the education policy of different nations. And concludes that, according to the scholars, the inculcation of skills and vocational training program with the complete change in pedagogy system due to the involvement of modern technology, are significant steps to produce influential results. Graduates would have to face the shorter length of the transition period from school to their desired workplace. Lesser depression, better level of productivity and economic prosperity would be the projected results of this utterance. What do you think about the incorporation of disruptive machinery in the educational sector. Would it work?
