The future of education


The Information Age has facilitated the re-invention of nearly every industry except for education. It's time to reconsider all the assumptions that underpin how we deliver instruction and begin to design new models that are better able to leverage talent, time, and technology to best meet the unique needs of each student.


The education industry is one of the industries that has been slow to respond to changes. The current COVID wave has raised a lot of questions to the industry which has forced many institutions to consider their business models and how they deliver content to learners. But how did we get here?


I always wondered why my primary teacher would punish me for reaching the school late irrespective of the reasons. Many teachers apply authority over children right from the start emphasizing comply, comply, do as you are told, stay at grade level, do your homework. These children, later on, become teachers who won't stand up for kids, The principals who don’t support teachers who stand up to the system. The administrators who push principals to do the wrong things for kids. The Superintendents who believe that their word is the law.


Many theories talk about the origin of the current classroom model, Prussia is the most credited place where this model started in the 18th century. The great industrial revolution intensified the need for classroom education.


Have you ever wondered why students sit in columns and rows the same way machines were organized in factories listening to their teachers who stand in front as the sole providers of knowledge where students are only seen as consumers? This is the same way traditional factories were and still organized in rows and columns. The emphasis on punctuality and order in schools was the same way factories were organized and managed.


This model prepared students for factory work which was in a lot in demand but not thinkers of this knowledge age.


We need to re-question the assumptions upon which the current education system was built if we are to prepare the students for the future. 


Is the education system which was preparing students for the industrial age still relevant? We need to reimagine and reinvent how education is delivered to better meets of the learners.

 The current push for e-learning presents us with an opportunity to re-examine the old assumptions upon which the system was built. Unfortunately, most institutions are just transferring the traditional classroom model to an online setting without even making any change.


We need to re-examine the variables upon which we measure academic success is measured. Education needs to be delivered in a format that encourages students to be creative and experimental irrespective of the discipline. Changing the curriculum as it has always been done may not be the only way to shake up things for the benefit of students.


The current education served its purpose, it is time to re-invent a new system which serves the current needs of the society. If the inventors of the current education system were to come back today and find us still using it, I believe that they would be surprised. The rationale was served and this is the time to move on from the bondages of our grandparents.


The current education system was intended to bring standardized students who were fit for the standardized jobs at factories. It is only in education where students with different interests and imaginations are taught in the same format without consideration of the student’s novelty.


In an age of customization, it is disappointing that our education system still employs the one size fits all approach.

Every era creates an education system that meets its needs. The current education system assumes a static world where things take time to change which is not the case.

The innovation of education in this knowledge age should focus more on less schooling and more opportunity about freeing ourselves from the assumptions of the traditional model.


Article by : Ssemwogerere John

The writer is the initiator of Magnah Learn, an education consultancy