Impact on education

The tradition of education ending at a diploma, degree, or certification will be an increasingly outdated concept, as many new job roles in the 4IR will require constant reskilling and upskilling to stay current with technological advancements. While business leaders around the globe agree their priority is to prepare employees for rapid technological change to stay competitive, they are not ready to meet the skilling demands of their workforces (Moritz & Stubbings, n.d.).

PwC's Upskilling Hopes and Fears Survey shows that the majority (53%) of workers fear automation will replace human labour and threaten their jobs and livelihoods, and automation is coming quickly as a result of 5G and the 4IR (2019). While there is hope that increased automation will free people to perform more complex tasks and creative endeavours that technology cannot, there is no guarantee that wealth created from automation will be distributed accordingly within our current global economic system. Thus, the workforce needs to be prepared to work in increasingly digitized and technological settings. Though "77% of adults would learn new skills now or completely retrain to improve their future employability," most workers who fear their jobs could be replaced by automation report they have fewer opportunities for skilling, reskilling, and upskilling through the workplace (PwC, 2019).

The survey reports that this "fear is greatest where opportunities are fewest—among those whose formal education ended after secondary school" and a digital skills gap exists between high school graduates and post-secondary graduates, with 34% of high school graduates reporting they are not learning new digital skills, compared to only 17% of post-secondary graduates (2019). The digital skills gap, as part of the digital divide, remains a challenge for employees and businesses and must be addressed if we are to have workers prepared in the 5G and 4IR era.

Optional activity: You can contribute to PwC's Hopes and Fears global survey and see how your responses compare to others.

(Watch at 0:01) Moyers asks, "Can we have a revolution in learning?"

Asimov: "Yes, I think not only we can, but I think we're going to have to. As computers take over more and more of the work that human beings shouldn’t be doing in the first place — because it doesn’t utilize their brain, it stultifies and bores them to death — there’s going to be nothing left for human beings to do but the more creative types of endeavour. And the only way we can indulge in the more creative types of endeavour is to have brains that aim at that from the start. You can’t take a human being and put him to work at a job that underuses the brain and keep him working at it for decades and decades, and then say, “Well, that job isn’t there, go do something more creative.” You have beaten the creativity out of him. But if from the start children are educated into appreciating their own creativity, then probably almost all of us can be creative."

(Watch at 6:57) Moyers asks, "This revolution you're talking about - personal learning - it's not just for the young, is it?"

Asimov: "No, that's a good point. No, it's not just for the young. That's another trouble with education as we now have it. It is for the young, and people think of education as something that they can finish. And what’s more, when they finish, that's a rite of passage into manhood. "I'm finished with school, I'm no more a child," and therefore anything that reminds you of school - reading books, having ideas, asking questions - that’s kid’s stuff. Now you're an adult, you don’t do that sort of thing anymore…"