Giving Compass' Take:

• Pearson's Chief  Product Strategy Officer, Luyen Chou, discusses four truly fascinating trends he has observed throughout his numerous years working in education. 

• Chou describes how we are constantly adapting to change in education and the rate of human knowledge is growing exponentially. Are teachers affected the most by this growth? Will the future bring them toward more challenging issues as students will be able to do more self-learning because of the internet? 

• Read the Christensen Institute's take on the future of education. 

I’ve been struck by how universally education is understood to be the key to attainment. Yet at the same time, I was also dismayed by the enormous challenges many learners face just trying to gain access to affordable, basic, high-quality education. Even in markets where access to learning is readily available, I’ve watched the gap widen between what students are taught, and what they really need to be successful in today’s world.

Now, as I begin a new journey overseeing product for Trilogy Education, I want to share some of my biggest takeaways. These are the megatrends that make me so excited about the road ahead:

  1. Education is adapting to a world of constant change: In the early 1980’s Buckminster Fuller observed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II, it was doubling every twenty-five years. Today, by current estimates, human knowledge is doubling every thirteen months. This trend is likely to continue; experts at IBM have hypothesized that knowledge could double every 12 hours as the internet of things grows.
  2. ROL’ — Return on Learning: For most of this next generation of learners, higher education won’t just be about learning for learning’s sake, or an anachronistic belief that a college degree on its own will guarantee gainful employment. Students will more than ever be focused on the “return on learning.”
  3. The trusted role of traditional education institutions: Despite the incredible pace of change in education, society continues to exhibit a deeper trust in the institutions that have long histories dedicating themselves to advancing students’ lives through learning.
  4. The role of technology: Technology is the only viable way to scale the serious capacity and affordability issues we face in education.

Read the full article about trends in global education by Luyen Chou at EdSurge