They say the only constant in life, is change. And this adage rings truest in business, which has changed drastically in the last decade. Profiles that didn’t exist 10 years ago — data scientist, social media manager, app developer, — are in great demand now. But while the scope of job profiles keeps expanding, one crucial sector lags behind; the higher education.
An article in Harvard Business Review outlines the importance of higher education’s ability to adapt. It states that the speed that tech innovation and industry demands is much faster than what the higher ed can keep up with — the system still focuses on lectures and exams, because of which students remain under-prepared to join work.
Unprepared for workplace?
When a bunch of academic and industry leaders were surveyed about the state of higher education by IBM Institute for Business Value, 51 per cent agreed that current state of higher education failed to meet students’ needs, while 60 per cent said it doesn’t meet industry standards.
The skills you need to succeed at workplace, such as analysis and problem solving, collaboration and teamwork, business-context communication, and flexibility, agility, and adaptability, are the ones that students lack the most, they felt.
The solution, they say, is to provide experience-based approach and practical learning.
To read the entire HBR article, click here .