Today’s universities and other higher education institutions which were the significant cornerstones for the society to develop, are now struggling with the wave of rapid changes, propelled with the technological shift.
Overview: Higher education institutions are now disrupted with demographic shifts, automation technology, declined enrollment rates, political headwind, stumbling confidence to the system.
University students nowadays: Put more effort in obtaining additional credits or certificates to fulfill business requirements, while enrollment rates decline gradually.
The higher education business model is collapsing: As we have discussed in our previous article, institutions don’t prepare current students for the future of work which will lead to a critical talent shortage in the digital era.
College education is experienced in the early lifetime (the 20s) while it remains typically guided by people through a lifelong career.
Gig Jobs rather than a day-to-day business: The risk of automation and being replaced with a robot, life expectancies, change in business pushes human being to multi career opportunities to distribute the risk.
Rising education costs (mostly in universities) including student debts: Education makes up currently %11 of total public expenditure in Turkey (Spending USD8193 per tertiary student per year.) Student debts are rising worldwide, and students put extreme effort to pay back their dues. One in five university students in Turkey who receive state loan support fails to pay their debts.
Critical question: While expectations are changing, lifelong learning with micro certificate opportunities is rising, who is going to pay for lifelong learning?
As we have discussed in our previous article (Turkish), we have announced ILO’s universal entitlement to lifelong learning that enables people to skill, reskill, and upskill. Now we all see this issue is not a single thing to overcome, requires multidisciplinary action to sustain talent required for the business world, a value generated for a resilient, prosperous society.