“Learning will go micro and will become just-in-time expertise to provide a product or service... Credentials will become data-driven and your work will become your resume, as the world moves to data-driven micro credentials,” said Nandan Nilekani, chairman of EkStep and non-executive chairman of Infosys.
He was speaking after inaugurating a three-day conference on ‘The Future of Learning’, jointly organised by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, in Bengaluru on Monday.
The ‘Future of Learning’ conference is the first in a series of annual conferences alternating between IIMB and IITB for the next three years.
Mr. Nilekani, who spoke on ‘Micro is the new Mega in a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous)’, said universities will become platforms that distribute the ability to teach and learn, becoming testing grounds for blended, holistic learning solutions.
“We are currently witnessing the third mass revolution in education, triggered and powered by new-age platforms. In earlier times, learning was a rite of passage. The model was ‘study-earn-retire’. This has been replaced by learning as a life-long activity. We will be learning and earning. Therefore, we must create infrastructure that enables continuous and life-long learning. As each of us will have our unique journeys of learning, we need to create infrastructure so that society, market and government can work together to support this revolution,” Mr. Nilekani said.
Nearly 2.5 billion people have smartphones and options in terms of data, apps and capabilities. “This has an impact on education too. Digital unbundling leads every sector, including education, to go from mega to micro, and creates new ways to mix and match,” he added.
IIMB Director G. Raghuram noted that the emerging convergence of technologies, entrepreneurship, and risk capital can create new educational market places and radically transform the future of educational institutions and the future of education itself. He added that the universities of the future must develop a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary focus, provide access to quality education and use digital as an enabler.
