Continuous changes in the economy

Economical driving force of The Future of Secondary Education in 2020

Description:

The new economy in its ever changing state fuels a continuous need for education and re-education in order to let those being trained be aware of new trends and to inspire them to accept education as an ongoing process as opposed to a phase that has a clear beginning and end marker.
Economic downfall however is also consistently present driving the government to cut spending on education in favor of other expenditures. This leads to a need for inventiveness in the education sector, a need to cut costs by finding new alternatives and new modes of existence.

Enablers:

• Technology-enabled workers already experience the need for continuous education.
• Reduced funding means alternatives need to be found quickly in order to maintain any form of effectiveness. Hence, many people will want focus on this, creating the possibility of apt solutions.
• New technologies and their increasingly ready availability inspire people to look at old problems in a new way.

Inhibitors:

• Reduced funding also means reduced means to find new solutions
• Reduced funding also means higher workload which may lead to loss of interest
• New forms of education have the intrinsic problem that people need to be educated in order to be able to receive this education. For instance, computer-based distance learning requires people to be trained in the use of a computer.

Paradigms:

Any new solution to an old problem is embraced, but all too often found impractical. The golden egg would be a form of education that is minimally technology-enabled (low barrier) but is also minimally teacher-centered (low costs).

Experts:

• Ministry of Education
• Universities (and other educational institutes)
• Education philosophers

Timing:

People will continue to search for ways of adapting education to fit the needs of the people, but all will in the end prove fruitless. By the year 2020, someone will come up with the idea to change the order of precedence and adapt the people to education. This will spark a public debate on the ethics of ‘changing’ people and no consensus will be reached until 2050 when it will be widely adopted. In the end, it will prove useful to add a ‘curiosity marker’ to people so that people will self-educate on an ongoing basis, and actively seek assistance as needed.