The idea that education systems around the world are undergoing significant changes, primarily technological, seems very plausible, but not entirely true.
Isak Frumin is Research Supervisor at the Institute of Education at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
If you go to the Museum of Education, you can see mock-ups of classrooms and classrooms and be amazed at how little they have changed during the evolution of the class-lesson system. The basic learning technologies have not changed over the past three centuries. All innovations do not affect them: it is a teacher and a group of students within the framework of an organized learning process common to this entire group.
Education, perhaps, is just the area that the development of technology has affected the least. If, for example, to look at the work of doctors, it becomes clear what a gigantic path medicine has passed. This applies to technologies, and their tools, and what doctors themselves do, and what they now know. Two centuries ago there were no ideas about analyzes. Today, diagnostic equipment and diagnostic infrastructure are an essential part of medicine. The robot surgeon Da Vinci has appeared, which is used for specific operations. Nothing like this happened in education.
If we talk about real changes, then so far, in my opinion, there is only one – the scale of education has grown both in terms of coverage and in terms of the number of years of study. In the late 1950s, only half of the children in the USSR completed eighth grade. That is, the expected duration of education for a six-year-old child was then approximately seven years. Today this figure is 15 years. This is the biggest change. It is also important that today no one can be “thrown out” of school, “rejected”. I consider this a very positive trend.
The thesis that basic technologies in education do not change will have to be reconsidered only if the model of online universities develops. This is the trend of recent years. But even here we are not talking about the fact that students independently study the material online. As a rule, the teacher interacts with a group of students according to the schedule, in this case, geographically distributed. This interaction takes place partly face-to-face, albeit with the help of the Internet, partly through a system that resembles a social network or forum. This is a normal evolutionary change, which, judging by the experience, is promising. But we are talking about a significant change in culture, and it will take some getting used to.
The most offensive changes for universities in connection with the development of online teaching occur in the field of learning foreign languages. In a recent study we conducted, it was found that 94% of students who did very well in the final exam in English studied additionally outside the university. At the same time, Russian universities have gigantic departments of a foreign language. Perhaps it’s time to think about the reallocation of these resources.
Now the situation in the economy is such that the skills acquired within the framework of the education system are becoming obsolete. Of course, people will have to retrain and finish their education, master new technologies. If you graduate from the Faculty of Information Technology today, then for sure a significant part of your technical skills will have to be updated. But it does not follow from this that what you were taught at the institute is not necessary. If a person has mastered something well, he has acquired the skill of his own learning and development. This is the key skill that the education system gives, in addition to the general culture and vision of the world.
Now the situation in the economy is such that the skills acquired within the framework of the education system are becoming obsolete
The list of specialties that are taught in institutes will certainly change: new professions appear, some disappear. The process of job losses due to automation and the use of artificial intelligence continues, but it is not an avalanche. At the same time, a huge number of new jobs are being opened, also mostly not requiring highly skilled labor, just like those that are disappearing. And highly skilled employees are not likely to lose their jobs.
At the same time, the state, society should not “leave” a person as soon as he graduates from a university. It must be recognized that education does not end when a person is 22 or 25 years old. We need to help people get an education throughout their lives. Therefore, in some countries there are peculiar vouchers, thanks to which every five years each person can undergo retraining. It is very important to emphasize that now in our country there is no constitutional, legal guarantee of receiving a free education after graduation. And the education systems in developed countries are moving precisely towards the fact that after school a person will receive the right to unlearn six years for free at any time during his life.
Carefully following the trends in the economy and the labor market, we must not forget that the education system exists not for employers, but for people. The employer does not need a highly educated employee. First, such an employee may request a higher salary. Secondly, he can move to another employer. It is no coincidence that the theory of human capital separates specific human capital, that is, the ability to work in a particular workplace, and general human capital.
Employers invest and should invest in specific human capital. They are not interested in investing in the development of common human capital. employers are more or less actively involved in the training of specialists in the last undergraduate courses. In addition, it is necessary to take into account not only the requests of the employers themselves, but also carefully study what the modern workplace really requires. After all, the education system should help a person achieve success in life.
Contrary to popular belief, in our country there is a very strong relationship between having a higher education diploma and salary. On average, the difference between the salaries of people with higher education and those with only school education – the so-called premium for higher education – is higher in our country than in the United States. That is why most families in our country believe that their task is to give their child a higher education. This is an economically rational action, and not just a matter of status.
At the same time, our state systematically saves on education. We are trying to compete in technological markets by spending less than all competing countries as a percentage of GDP. The gap in funding for universities is particularly large. The problem lies precisely in the strong budget underfunding since 2012, and not in the fact that students underpay for education. The funds of families that pay for education are already heavily strained.
In Germany, as in a number of other countries, almost every school graduate can go to university and study there for free. The paid education sector in Germany is microscopic. In our country, more than half of the students pay for their education, only not in private universities, but in state ones.