Evolution of education

Covid propelled some dramatic changes in education. But unlike in other industries where a return to normality means a return to pre-pandemic ways of doing business, changes in how and what people are taught are likely to be there for good.

That’s because rather than turning things on their head, to a large extent Covid merely accelerated an evolution that was already underway. 

Remote learning, videoed lectures, on-line schooling, non-traditional subjects and lifetime tertiary education had already been available but were largely confined to the margins of the education industry.

Now they’re mainstream.

This, in turn, is proving both a challenge and opportunity to business, according to Pictet-Human Advisory Board.

That the nature of lifetime employment has changed is a key driver for the education industry. Ever more people are moving to whole new fields, not just once but two or three times during their working lives. There is, in turn, increasing focus on enterprise and adult skills training.

In part, there is less regulatory risk here, as opposed to school level education which is heavily circumscribed by demands of national curricula – adults wishing to re-train are focused on learning technical skills.

Alongside a dropoff in admissions into professional degrees – demand for places at law and business schools has slumped – people are looking to build up their manual skills, be it employment-driven like plumbing or self-fulfilling, like printmaking. At the same time, people are taking on portfolios of paid and voluntary jobs.

School's forever

Projections of share of adults* educated to degree level

One key shift in education has been the rise of women.

Increasingly, they make up the largest cohort of the educated population in developed countries. Since 2008, there have been more women than men undertaking university degrees and our advisory board expect the proportion to rise above 60 per cent over the coming years. In ever more subjects, women are starting to make up big majorities of students. 

Educators are having to accommodate this shift, not least to take account of the way women learn.

For instance, women prefer to take a longer time over subjects and like more flexibility. They also study subjects differently. Where men are more content to learn key points, women prefer a more discursive approach, enjoying more team time. Women tend to do better than men at assessments, especially where exams are subjective rather than objective.

Meanwhile, on-line learning requires careful segmentation. Some technical training is less adapted to virtual training – for instance, there’s only so much that can be done in the hospitality industry remotely. But in other fields, like technology, there is little that cannot be taught online as effectively as in person. 

But the devil is in the detail. Students value social interaction and classrooms can be more important for social reasons than educational ones. And then many employers value linkages between employees and so will favour those who are local. These sort of linkages in the job market are hard to break. 

Businesses and universities therefore need to invest in student flexibility. Different university programmes will determine different amounts of online or offline delivery – some will need lab space and direct interaction, others won’t. But these sorts of hybrid educational models will be difficult to implement and need careful managing of hard and soft assets.

How the online education is delivered is being influenced by games.

Companies are investing in gamification of training. Gamification isn’t just for young children. It has long been used by the military to develop strategy. Sometimes it can prove a critical improvement to professionals on traditional forms of education.

For instance, there is a complex gastric surgery to treat a rare condition that can’t really be practiced in life. For this, a series of three-dimensional models and games have been created to allow surgeons to practice without putting patients at risk.

As always, it’s a matter of picking the right problems. For instance, virtual reality games are used to help train people in the hospitality industry on how to deal with difficult customers effectively. 

The nature of education has changed significantly. The speed of some of these changes has been driven by the pandemic, but the societal drivers were already in place. The challenge is for businesses to adapt to these new demands.

The trends and technologies discussed in this article are some of the investment themes that inform the Pictet-Human strategy, which centres on services that help us adapt to the demographic and technological shifts that are changing our lives.