Education Revolution 4.0

The buzz everywhere is about Industrial Revolution 4.0. No one however, talks about how the humanity would be ready for that revolution. It is a stark truth that in all the earlier industrial revolutions that began with steam engine, the labour force was not educated for what was coming to them. The education followed the revolution, which is the real reason why the virtues of the industrial revolution transformed into vices. Current crisis like climate change, loss of biodiversity, air pollution and water stress all have emerged due to the fact that education was left behind the fast speeding industrial revolutions.

The digital revolution, which is a part of industrial revolution 4.0 is likely to follow this trend and this is unfortunate not because that it will replicate earlier adverse impacts, but because the digital revolution itself has strengthened the delivery of the education in terms of speed and efficacy. Still potential of Education 4.0 may not be leveraged to deliver it. In other words, education 4.0 can derive benefits from industrial revolution 4.0, but still in danger of not bucking the past trends.

There is a world-wide debate on how artificial intelligence and automation will drastically change the employment pattern and labour market. Brookings Institution released a report concluding that virtually all occupations will be affected by automation and artificial intelligence. At the extreme end of these scenarios is the intricate predictions that 85 percent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet!

I am a strong believer in the power of education that goes beyond just the delivery of knowledge. It touches the frontiers of skilling and reskilling. I therefore, would venture to respond to various debates on emerging new job-markets that delivery of the education would immensely benefit from new developments in AI and Machine Learning. And that the 85 percent of delivery mechanisms of such skilling are yet to be invented!

Change is, however, already happening. Even students of mechanical and industrial engineering are quickly learning the degree of digital literacy for getting skilled in 'predictive maintenance'. It was enough to know for a mechanic how to fix a combustion engine, but today's digital world mechanics are getting conversant with a software and apps built into the modern cars.

The employers that find difficulty in getting the 'digital workforce' and want to move fast forward in their business would establish the skilling institutes in their enterprise to make the workforce ready in fulfilling their ambitious targets.

TERRE Policy Centre's project on Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN) has initiated much faster education delivery mechanism to build digital skills in campus. It is based on two principles. First, 'learning by doing' and second, forging a partnership with skilled partners.

Apart from encouraging the students to take part in social and environmental hackathon, SCCN encourages the interested and digitally literate teams to get in touch with professionals in developing apps that can be the extension of the existing commercial app. Recently, it encouraged the faculty and students of MIT-World Peace University in Pune India to interact with Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) to extend their existing air-monitoringapp 'SAFAR INDIA'. Now, the air pollution quality app has added one more location on the national map and is already part of SAFAR INDIA.

Thatteam now is 'future ready' to extend SAFAR INDIA rapidly. There are now resources available to educate other university student groups through SCCN cloud computing dashboard.

Indeed, SCCN is a demonstration of 'how to keep education 4.0 ahead of industrial revolution 4.0'.