What's the problem?

A lot has been said and argued about education's role in preparing students for a/the/their futures and while we can say that education that doesn't prepare them for the future is futile (and also rather unengaging), the question that a lot of educators have asked is "what does that future actually look like?". 

I mean, IF education needs to prepare students for a/the/their futures, and we, with the lack of crystal balls and time machines, have only patterns of the past to use to predict said future. The alternative is that education and educators have to assume that the future is going to look a lot like the past. 

How do we unpack that? 

The latter statement is ridiculous. The world is no longer like the past, and despite some people yearning for the ability to turn back time, we can't go back. 

Conversely, IF we look at patterns of the past few years, we see tremendous innovative leaps in technology, work and employment, societal concerns and vast upheavals in the status quos in almost every domain. The speed in which society has changed has been amazing and the changes seem to be driven by innovations that are spreading faster than we could ever have imagined. 

A simple example of this is the fact that all those years ago, when my teachers told me that it was important to know X because encyclopaedias were not very widespread (I was privileged because my parents invested in a set and even then, the tomes were far from portable) and that one wouldn't have a calculator on them all the time, they didn't quite imagine a future where neither of those statements would hold water a scant 30 years later. 

The issue here is that education hasn't really changed all that much from the classroom that I inhabited as a student. Which points to something - that education mostly still believes the latter statement. 

There is something systemic about it and the success of the education system (especially in Singapore) has perhaps been the key reason for that. The fact that the Singaporean education system has produced our successes and that our graduates still find well paying jobs and bright futures is perhaps a testament to said success. We definitely still have one of the most literate populations in the world despite being a rather young nation. We are one of the "richest" nations in the region due to the development of a workforce that has helped build that wealth. 

So if all this is true, why rock the boat? 

The problem is that the metaphorical boat that is Singaporean education was built for needs of the past. It was a system that was developed to create workers that would need to be able to follow instructions and execute tasks in a given time. The roles were defined and most work required execution. And that worked for the age of industrialism. The future, however, seems to require a different set of skills. 

The problem is that there are so many disruptions right now that the skills required are unclear and undefined. What could be relevant in one year could be redundant the next. If so, what's a foundational skill that is required for success in the future? 

The one idea that Robinson focuses on is creativity and that penchant for that ability being key for future success. Creativity and the ability to be creative is fundamental in a (to steal a phrase) VUCA world. (VUCA being the acronym for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) If we were to accept that prediction (that the world our students will inhabit and navigate) will be Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, they will need certain skills and knowledge to be able to inhabit and navigate said world. 

The key thing, I believe, is that they will need a certain level of flexibility (mental, not physical*).  They will need adaptability. Innovation will be required so that's definitely a plus too! 

Unfortunately, all that runs counter to an education system which does not value these traits (or values the antithesis of these traits). The problem with the education system as it exists in Singapore isn't that we actively suppress these traits (although sometimes we do) or say that these traits aren't valued, it is that there are other KPIs that are prioritised over these traits which run counter to them. Here are some of them. 

1) Compliance (via standardisation) over flexibility

2) Certainty over ambiguity

3) Repetition over innovation

Even if schools were to say that they value all the latter skills in their students, but they continue to prioritise the former, the necessary skills will actually be ignored because the KPIs are contradictory. 

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for that is that we have been successful. But that's the biggest issue, we have been successful, past tense. Does that help to prepare our students for the future? 

I think not.