The primary objectives of education are to cater to the needs of self, family, and a society one is a part of. However, the very definition and needs of a society undergo gradual transformation with time. With the world becoming closer with revolutionary changes in communication using information technology (IT), the society has expanded its scope to extend to nations and world. Similarly, the personal needs have seen transition from the very simple ones in the early days to a wider and a larger mosaic with faster dissemination of information.

In the information society, computers and the Internet are playing a dominant role in the formative stage. As we progress, there will be better tools. The computer literates, who are fluent, will be better placed to meet the needs of the information society. The difference between computer literates and illiterates is analogous to the differences we notice between literates and illiterates. We need to stress here that there is a good amount of correlation between the overall health of a nation and the literacy level. To reduce the impact due to the digital divide in the society, speedy remedial measures are required to enlarge the percentage of computer literates.

The industrial scene has been witnessing drastic changes on a far wider scale known to mankind due to the application of IT. IT related technologies are networking the companies around the globe and tying the employees into well-knit entities. This will mean keener competition backed up by instant data access, quick decision making, and communicating decisions to the concerned instantaneously. The globalisation of means of production, distribution and marketing has its own impact on skills required and hence on educational requirements of employees.

Because of globalisation and fierce competition, the job scenario is changing significantly all over the world. In the early days, in many nations, a government job was an assured lifetime employment. In industrialised nations, working for a large corporation was also considered a lifetime job. Since some years, downsizing and re-engineering have become the norms. Meanwhile, some of the traditional jobs have simply vanished. To cope with this situation, we are forced to re-educate ourselves continuously.

Hence, the old notion of preparing students to cater to the needs of large companies and government jobs is slowly becoming obsolete. Instead of producing employees to work in government or large corporations, the shift has to be on producing individual entrepreneurs. They must have the ability to adapt to quick changes and must feel comfortable with the changing technologies. Also, they will have to be educated to work independently and innovatively. The stress has to be on open mindedness and developing creativity. Taiwan is an excellent example of a nation becoming a giant due to individual entrepreneurship and small scale industries. 

Education has to emphasise on risk taking to students. For instance, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, would never have reached the present level but for his risk taking ability. He would have continued in Harvard and would have ended up, if highly successful, as a chairman of some corporation. But that does not match his current stature, legacy, and wealth, which he acquired by risk taking and building Microsoft from scratch.

To some extent, though regional languages have been a barrier to the national integration, they have helped people in the lower strata to become more informed. Slowly, the regional languages are losing their importance because of the changing job scenarios. If one cannot get a good job or market for his or her company’s products in one place or region, what is the use of sticking to one’s regional language? With this ground reality, we have to admit that the good command of English and the ability to communicate in English are gaining importance and widespread acceptance.

As education is steadily penetrating an ever-increasing number of people, its quality and the standard have been witnessing a gradual decline. Except for the products of leading institutions, a good number of graduates being churned out need a good amount of training to be employable. Of course, this is one of the major complaints of most of the employers all over the world. To compete globally, we need to stress on the quality of education as well. Otherwise, the army of educated and unemployed will only swell in numbers.  

Another disturbing trend and major complaint globally is the decline of reading habit with the popularisation of TV. Reading habit is very important to keep up-to-date and acquire knowledge. It also teaches patience and improves the comprehension and analytical skills. All these are basic ingredients of communication skills.

The information society has a negative impact of developing individualistic attitudes. This negative trend along with the lack of stress on ethics and values in busy husband and wife working homes, have to be made up by education. Otherwise, we will be churning out highly selfish and individualistic robots. This is already noticeable in western nations with a detrimental effect on the society at large.

The future students have to be trained to cater to the needs of the information society. This change in the requirements from future work force needs corresponding changes in the education system including management, curriculum, and delivery. The courses will have to stress on IT tools. All these add up to the urgent need of restructuring of the education system right from the elementary education level all the way up.

As we move on the information society path, we need many changes at the higher education level too. To carry forward the advances in IT, we need a highly educated work force with a strong background of math and basic sciences. Logical thinking, analytical skills, and very good communication skills are essential elements. In addition, the employees have to be adaptable and flexible. The students have to think from a global perspective and need to have knowledge of different cultures, religions, and languages.

The leading universities around the world will have a more diverse array of students. They may come from different countries with different languages, religion, colour, culture and so on. This is already happening in many leading US universities such as Stanford, MIT, Harvard and others. The stress on diversity will only increase and not decrease as we march to the future. At present, some of our universities have cross-connections with European and Asian universities. This interaction with other universities helps the students to face different environments providing a broader outlook and wider perspective.

Also there are enormous opportunities for long distance learning all the way in the chain from educating the illiterate to the higher education levels. A professor teaching a course at Delhi University can have students from different places in India. There will be video interactions and grading the courses. The examinations can be taken simultaneously at different places and the answers can be sent by e-mail or file transfer to the professor concerned. This trend will increase as we move into the information society. If one wants to have one-to-one discussion then again it will be done via videoconferencing.

To cater to the information society, the management and business curriculum have to be reengineered to cater to the needs of future companies empowered with leading edge technologies. As the future corporations will be globally dispersed, IT centric, the stress has to be on bringing out IT savvy business leaders and management experts with a global perspective. It has to be stressed here that the work culture, the command structure, and the style of functioning will be quite different from the present one. The good news is that some leading management and business schools have already started restructuring the curriculum on these lines.

Most of the advances in medicine are due to the technological advances leading to the discovery of new diseases and effective drugs to treat the diseases. Basically, the advanced technologies and information exchange between doctors have helped the doctors to accurately diagnosis and treat the patients in a more scientific manner. These days, doctors doing research have far greater access to the latest advances occurring in the medical field. This facilitates research and ability to keep up-to-date. The medical education has to stress on the advances in technology and their applications.

From the above examples, it is imperative that the education in every discipline needs a major overhaul horizontally as well as vertically to cater to the future information society.

Present and future are what count and matter though past is very important to learn from past mistakes!  

Log in.. Tribune, October 29, 2001 (Revised and Shorter).

TOP                                   Information Technology (IT) Articles