Appetite for education

Paul Angus, Education Sector Lead (NSW & ACT) | AECOM

The current Covid-19 crisis has provided an incentive to pause, reflect and reconsider how exactly the current education system can adapt to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Education in today’s world needs to equip today’s young people with the skills to thrive in a tomorrow’s world……even if we don’t know what exactly it looks like yet, when you consider that up to 50% of today’s work activities could be fully automated by 2055. There will always be an appetite for education, a thirst for knowledge, and the ability to adapt and retrain, but how exactly can today's education facilities prepare students for a world that doesn't yet exist?

Paradise Campus

Since the start of ‘lockdown’, the majority of university campuses all around the globe have suddenly found themselves empty. Corridors, usually filled with laughter and discussion, are eerily quiet. Lecture theatres and classrooms that were bursting with enthusiasm and knowledge sharing at the start of the year are now all desolate.

Did you know that before COVID-19 struck, around five million students were undertaking degrees outside their home country. However, travel restrictions and social isolation measures around the world have and will continue to reduce the numbers of international students dramatically. This is a major concern, especially when you consider that the education sector is a major contributor to Australia’s economy, with extraordinary numbers of international students enrolling at Australian universities. For example, in 2019, there were 720,150 international students in Australia. That is an 11% growth on the previous year, which catapulted Australia’s position, as the second-most popular destination in the world for study abroad, only after the United States of America.

Five countries compose more than half of all international student enrolments in the country:

• China (28% of the total) • Nepal (7% of the total)

• India (15% of the total) • Brazil (4% of the total) • Vietnam (3.5% of the total)

Did you know that the Education Sector is Australia’s fourth largest export, with the international student market valued at $39 billion to Australia last year? When you consider the revenue that is generated from international student fees, it is plain to see how this has become a key source of income for Australian universities and a major concern, due to the lockdown.

On average, foreign students pay $8-10,000 more in university fees than their home-grown counterpart students. To attract international students, educational facilities have to adapt and invest significantly in new facilities with the latest advancement in technology, campuses that integrate with industry and business precincts, improved student accommodation, plus promote themselves in key markets.

For universities, this revenue forms an important crosssubsidy into funding existing building refurbishments, constructing new facilities and transforming campuses. International students are the catalyst for injecting funding for many universities. However, with international travel restricting overseas student applications, this has effectively restricted the revenue stream for universities. Funding that was initially projected and allocated to new campus projects is no longer available in the short term.

Another aspect to consider is the competition for international rankings are a vital tool in attracting prospective students, both locally and internationally. Without revenue, plans for growth and improvements to new facilities are on effectively on hold. What does that future look like and how do we accommodate, improve, expand and facilitate new educational facilities, when major funding has been depleted?

Welcome to the future of education

Education needs to prepare today’s young students with the skills to thrive in tomorrow’s world. According to a Dell Technologies report, 85% of the jobs in 2030 that graduates will enter into have not been invented yet. Even more startling is that by 2030, 65% of primary-school children learning today will be working in roles that do not exist yet.

• Coronavirus-related disruption can give educators time to rethink the sector.

• T echnology has stepped in and will continue to play a key role in educating future generations. • In a world where knowledge is a mouse-click away, the role of the educator must change too.

Education must and has had to adapt to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Change is transformational. Change is good. Change can be very tough. Sometimes, when we have to adapt, when we have to change, that is when the good things happen.

A radical change in the way education is delivered online could have taken years, however most educational facilities have been forced to adapt and become virtual. Lecturers and students alike are now becoming accustomed to a new routine of studying at home, attending lectures and studies online, made so easy by relying on advancements in technology.

These recent advancements in educational technology are quite frankly amazing. The level of technology that has emerged in this field are allowing educators to create remarkable learning experiences for today’s young minds. With Virtual interactive technologies becoming so widely available, it has effectively made it easier and faster for students to learn. This could result in teaching and learning never, ever being the same again.

Technology is advancing and transforming how we live, work, play and think. And it’s happening far more rapidly, and on a larger scale, than at any point in human history.

As technology is rapidly changing the world around us, what does the future of the education system have, as we once knew it? Educators are tapping into the digital revolution and adopting new technologies to help students reach their full potential. In doing so, makes one thing certain, Education will never disappear, it will just take a very different form to how we once knew it.

Live and let e-learn

Now, more than ever, there is a wealth of available online learning opportunities. Part of the appeal of online learning is that they’re convenient. Students can take lessons at home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Students will have more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. eLearning tools facilitate opportunities for remote, self-paced learning. Classrooms and lecture theatres as we know it will be flipped, which means the theoretical part is learned outside the classroom, whereas the practical part shall be taught face to face, albeit interactively. Just imagine, students will be learning outside, armed with different devices, listening to a teacher. Lecturer or bot of choice, in a language they choose.

The classrooms of the future will be centred around selfpaced and personalized learning. This student-centric approach allows students to choose their own pace and learning objectives, based on individual interests—all of which could be guided by artificial intelligence, chatbots – in a language they can choose, and video-based learning in an environment they choose. Welcome to the future of education.

Virtual Reality (VR) is one extraordinary technology that teachers are deploying in the classroom. Another technology being introduced is gamification – a teaching resource that turns learning into a videogame. This tool entices students by challenging them with an incentive to complete work in order to reach a new level.

In other areas, developers have created digital content that presents reading materials, replacing standard textbooks, based on students’ comprehension level. With adaptive learning, instead of a broad-based approach,

students in schools and universities can have learning modules tailored around their specific needs, ways of learning, and any learning difficulties they have. That is where Chatbot’s assist in e-learning.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in education typically focuses on identifying what exactly a student does or doesn’t know, and then subsequently developing personalised study for each student. AI-driven applications in education are still in their infancy, although expected to become a $6 billion industry by the year 2025. Over half of this will come from China and the U.S., with China leading globally.

Knocking on the Chatbot’s door

Chatbots are also quickly becoming a fundamental tool in next generation education. Designed to simplify the interaction between student and computer, chatbots provide a wide range of benefits, as identified below:

• Spaced interval learning: Uses algorithms and repetition to optimise memorisation • Immediate feedback: Tests, exams and assessments can be assessed with a higher degree of accuracy and be far more efficient use of time than teachers

• Self-paced lear ning: Tracks a student’s performance and guides them based on their individual needs

This innovative technology is arming educators with new strategies for more engaged learning, whilst simultaneously reducing their workload.

Although we may not be in the era of iTeachers or a virtual lecture via a hologram just yet, the benefits of technology, as teaching aids, are plain to see. However, what is more important is that these aids are used in tandem with developmental and educational psychology—ultimately keeping students, rather than technology, at the core of education.

It is exciting to see that within just a few years, developments in technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and 3D printing will transform most occupations.

Sweet Student of mine

Looking to the future of education and how we train children and students for a tomorrows world and how we deliver work, it is clear that some of our most important investments are in creating artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms to enable our teams of tomorrow to become even more capable and efficient than ever before. In today’s world, a secondary benefit is fast becoming apparent: Applying digital technology allows far more virtual teaching than ever before to be delivered remotely online, by a connected global education revolution — especially critical when the future of our generation within a tomorrow’s world will demand it.

A wide range of occupations in the not so distant future will require a higher degree of cognitive abilities — such as creativity, logical reasoning and problem sensitivity — as part of their core skill set. More than half of these do not yet do so today, or only to a much smaller extent. This will lay the foundation for an education revolution more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen.

But, even when lockdown comes to an end, we are likely to be subject to a significant period of restriction, potentially until a vaccine becomes available and this form of online teaching will continue into tomorrow’s world. The question education facilities of today will need to face up to, is when you can study online, why would you want to go to a campus? One thing that is certain, in these uncertain times is that thirst for knowledge, that appetite for education will always remain in today’s world to transform and develop tomorrows world.

About the Author Paul Angus

Paul Angus is AECOM’s Education Sector Lead for New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory. Paul has 20 years of experience focussing on Tertiary Education based on numerous projects within Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He has an excellent understanding of design and project management, including managing multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring coordination of disciplines are integrated into the program and quality review process.

He is a regular contributor of thought leadership articles for various industry magazines, including Facility Management Magazine, The Hotel Engineer and Healthcare Journal.