Most of this opinion article in the NY Times is standard stuff….with a strong flavour of the usual Thomas Friedman philosophy of “the future’s so bright we’ll all need to wear shades” that we’ve all enjoyed (endured?) in “The world is flat”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/opinion/covid-education-work.html
However, there are some interesting observations based on conversations with Ifosys’s President, Ravi Kumar, about his vision for the future of education. This is something I also strongly support as a very important part of the future of education, work, and society:
Today, companies like Infosys, IBM or AT&T are all creating cutting-edge in-house universities — Infosys is building a 100-acre campus in Indianapolis designed to provide their employees and customers not “just-in-case learning’’ — material you might or might not need to master the job at hand — but “just-in-time learning,’’ offering the precise skills needed for the latest task, explained Kumar.
In the future, lifelong learning will be done by what I call “complex adaptive coalitions.’’ An Infosys, Microsoft or IBM will partner with different universities and even high schools, argues Kumar. The universities’ students will be able to take just-in-time learning courses — or do internships — at the corporations’ in-house universities, and company employees will be able to take just-in-case humanities courses at the outside universities. Both will be able to “learn, earn and work,’’ all at the same time. It’s already beginning.