You often find companies complaining about the skill-gap in the students who graduate from schools, colleges, universities eager to join them as Freshers.
Why does this happen?
One of the few answers to this question is that the focus of the educational institutes is mostly on theoretical part. Approximately, 80% focus is on the theory, whereas only 20% focus is on the practical.
If you go deep, you will find that in case of many students, their actual interest was to study some other stream but they could not pursue that because they just went with the flow.
Why should a school teacher ask a student write an essay on ‘Planet Earth’, when their interest is in drawing an art.
A student who is really interested to write an essay on ‘Planet Earth’ will genuinely do that for the sake of their interest, but others will like to copy it from some Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform like Chatgpt.
Teachers should not complain about plagiarism or not being creative because they did not spend quality time to really understand the student’s interest and inclination towards a topic.
If you go deeper, you will find that management representatives of these educational institutes like Principals and Directors, they want the teachers to stick to the education system that has been going on for years. So, the teachers cannot go out of their boundaries to really help the students who need their quality time and guidance to move ahead in their career which is the first step towards building their professional career.
Do you agree with me that school should be the first step towards the professional development of a budding employee or employer?
If you still go deeper, you will find that the management representatives of these education institutes cannot go out of their boundaries because they need to stick to the education system prescribed by the government appointed educationists who decide the education system of their countries. Else, their students will not be able to obtain the certificates for completing the educational courses prescribed by the government bodies.
What do you think, is it not justified when you see a growing demand from the corporates and entrepreneurs for a complete overhaul of the education system?
What do you think when you have an educational course, in which 80% focus is on the practical and only 20% focus is on the theory?
With such focus on the practical education, students will be better equipped, and more mature mentally and emotionally to deal with real job scenarios. This will certainly enhance the skill set of the students to the expectation of the business organizations that look for hiring highly skilled freshers who can start giving results straight away.
This is absolutely possible when you see school students turning into entrepreneurs at a tender age of fourteen (https://www.youtube.com/@UmerQureshi).
In the case of Umer Qureshi, it was absolutely his courage to go against the conventional education system and find his way to entrepreneurship in Digital Marketing during his school days, but how will be the scenario when schools start supporting and instil such entrepreneurial mindset in the students during their formative days.
Those who criticize Artificial Intelligence (AI) for snatching away the creativity from the students need to introspect to understand, “How does AI really help?”
Two hundred years back when there was no electricity, people had to light up oil lamps to get relief from darkness. But electricity made it very easy for the people who can now light up their space just with the click of a finger-tip.
Phones sped up communication.
Aeroplanes sped up transportation.
Internet tools like Google made research faster.
So, at every stage of civilizational evolution, an invention has made it easy and has helped humans to save their valuable time and spend it in things they really like to do.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) like Chatgpt is one such invention that has started making our global civilization evolve further.
Government bodies of different countries need to understand that it is wise to embrace the invention of Artificial Intelligence as early as possible before it gets too late when parents and students lose their faith in the education system. This is perhaps one of the reasons that many entrepreneurs like Bill Gates (Microsoft), Ritesh Agarwal (Oyo) dropped out of their educational institutes.
Like the calculators do the tedious, time-consuming calculations, let AI do the time-consuming part of the theoretical part of the education system.
Come up with an education system that identifies the interest of the students and the related field, in which they can excel.
If a student is interested in singing, then why do you torture them with complex mathematical calculations. Instead, help the student nurture their singing ability through the years to attain higher level of singing ability. For this to happen, you need singing schools that award students with competence certificates that are of the same level like that of other graduate, post-graduate, and doctorate certificates.
In the case of professional singing career, 80 to 90% focus needs to be on the practical education.
You need to employ well-trained teachers to spend quality time with the students to understand their field of interest and help them take those important baby steps towards their future professional career with maximum focus on the practical education.
Ten years back around the year 2014, only a very few knew what was Digital Marketing. But look at today, you find a plethora of careers in various fields like video editing, content writing, graphic designing and many more that cater to the field of Digital Marketing.
Google, after its invention, led to the creation of so many modern professional careers like google marketing, google data analysis which were unheard of.
Therefore, instead of complaining against the advent of Artificial Intelligence, be agile to embrace this change at the earliest for the sake of your own interest because people like Bill Gates and Ritesh Agarwal do not wait for the educational system of their countries to change, rather they rely on innovation and unconventional systems to move ahead, and create a compulsion for others to follow them.
Be assured, there will be many more like Bill Gates, Ritesh Agarwal and Umar Qureshi whose success will force you to challenge the prevailing education system.
Without any bias towards the conventional education system, let us now discuss that how we can be benefited by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like Chatgpt.
In case of students, let AI tools help them for their theoretical education, so that they can save their precious time for the practical education.
If you are a professional, then use AI to create content like articles, books, and videos to share your learnings and experiences with others.
Now, there is no need to feel stuck with your job for not getting enough time to pursue something of your interest that requires creativity.
In every professional field like engineering or medicine, use AI to do the tedious, time-consuming theoretical work like data analysis to help the engineers spend quality time with the machines and doctors spend quality time with their patients.
Artificial Intelligence is your friend which will help you increase your efficiency.
In a field like marine engineering, marine engineers need to clear the exams which are both in written and verbal forms in order to climb up the ranks in the engine room of a cargo ship.
These examinations are conducted at land-based examination centres. Whereas, the marine engineers are expected to prove their ability in the engine room of a cargo ship.
So, instead of conducting these exams at a land-based centre, is it not advisable to conduct these capability building exams for marine engineers on a cargo ship itself, so that the credibility of these examinations go up, producing more efficient marine engineers?
This process will demand more number of examiners.
It will also need participation of more people in coordination and logistics. Ultimately, leading to employment of more people.
The point is that focusing more on the practical part of education is the need of the hour because you now have AI to help you with the theoretical part of education.
Focusing more on practical education will lead to an increase in educational institutions, employment opportunities, the credibility of educational processes and overall efficiency.
Ambitious space projects like interplanetary voyage missions and space tourism need more efficiency from the humans. You can enhance efficiency of humans when you use them for the right kind of work.
In the case of the Columbia space shuttle accident, which killed seven astronauts in the year 2003, the reason for the disaster was attributed to the fact that not enough measures were taken to prevent the heat shield damage, which could have protected the shuttle from dis-integrating upon its re-entry into earth’s atmosphere.
In such type of ambitious projects, humans need to be employed for creating AI tools and processes that can easily inspect and take corrective actions, in case any anomaly is detected.
Think, how much employment such massive and ambitious projects can generate, which are made foolproof with the support of AI.
In fact, Artificial Intelligence is a great invention which will help us become more efficient and, in turn, support further evolution of our global civilization.