- Training of creativity, values, beliefs, independent thinking, teamwork and compassion needed in the new AI world.
But which school is focusing on these subjects, instead they prefer short-term memorizing for the next exam?
- A sizable lack of teachers.
The United States of America had 3,8 million teachers in the pre-Covid phase 2019, but needed an additional 110,000. In 2022, a report by Kansas State University found at least 36,000 vacant positions and 163,000 positions being held by underqualified teachers. The National Education Association estimated a shortage of 300,000 teachers and staff (2022).
According to the conference of all state school ministers (KMK), there could be a shortage of 24,000 teachers in Germany by the 2035/36 school year, and as many as 76,000 teachers according to calculations by the Institute of the German Economy (IW). In 2022, Germany counted 790,000 teachers.
Why don’t we offer teachers higher salaries, since they educate the next generation, which generates taxes and welfare for all of us?
Why not simply use successful digital learning programs such as carrerfoundry.com when there is a shortage of teachers? Students use such digital tools privately every day with their mobile devices. It fits into their new world.
- Many schools are rotten.
If education is the raw material of the future, why is money scarce for modern schools?
The U.S. Department of Education estimated that the cost of repairs, renovations, and modernization required was approximately $197 billion, or $4.5 million per school (2014).
The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated in 2020 that 54 percent of public-school districts need to update or replace multiple building systems or features in their schools. Renovation is a local responsibility.
In the prosperous Federal Republic of Germany many schools are rotten:
According to a survey of the municipal treasurers responsible for finances, the investment backlog in June 2019 was an incredible € 42.8 billion. The result: Dirty toilets, leaky windows and rotten floors. In addition, insufficient cleanliness and hygienic conditions.
Does this encourage future-oriented learning?
Why not build smart new buildings where learning is fun?
Following the best examples from around the world.
- Over-Academization.
Over many decades, an over-academization of the education systems has developed that is no longer in keeping with the times.
For years, future teachers have been studying theory instead of practice with modern media. Thus, the gap between the new reality and the necessities as well as their training is widening.
The teachers' associations and unions are cementing this outdated system - for them it is a question of power and influence. For this reason they do not want to be replaced by external teachers who have not studied the subject, or by digital media. They are putting on the brakes, not in the interest of the students, but of the teachers they employ.
What really makes a good teacher?
The traditional prevailing opinion focuses on his or her didactic skills learned over years. Is this really true today?
Isn't there a growing gap between theory and practice, between reality-oriented students and detached teachers?
- Digital expertise needed.
In the Corona crisis, many students had to stay at home. Are schools and teachers prepared for remote learning? Or for acquiring digital skills?
There is often a lack of a digital infrastructure including computers, cloud technology, WLAN and system administrators. Important services such as WhatsApp, Skype or Zoom are perfectly suited, but are facing massive bureaucratic and ideological hurdles, such as excessive data protection. This in turn prevents the use of new teaching tools.
In most schools the teachers lack digital training. Often this applies to the younger generation as well. It utilizes Google, WhatsApp or Instagram. But basic knowledge rarely goes beyond that. That is too little for a successful career in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
90 percent of K-12 schools in the U.S. have at least one computer for every five students and 98 percent of American classrooms now have internet access, which can be used to facilitate learning in a variety of ways.
The industrial country Germany, a motor of the European Union, was praised and honored in the old German Empire as “the country of poets and thinkers”, i.e. a country of new thinkers. And today?
In the last 30 years the Federal Republic of Germany has completely overslept the digitization of schools. The disastrous results are reported in the European Union’s “Education and Training Monitor 2020”. The digital equipment of German schools is far below the EU average. Merely nine percent of children attended “well digitally equipped and networked school” in the school year 2017/18 – 26 percentage points less than the EU average. Only one third of the schools had the necessary digital equipment and were well prepared for the Corona lockdown. Only 35 percent of the teachers had regular contact with their students. One in ten of them had little contact. There is a lack of basic IT skills. The results of the Pisa study, published in September 2020, look similarly bleak: Only 33 percent of German students had access to an online learning platform in 2018. The OECD average is 54 percent. In Singapore or Denmark, more than 90 percent are capable of digitized learning.
There is no digital revolution at most schools. Although this is the responsibility of various education ministers in 16 German Federal states and to some extent the Federal government in Berlin, with many ministerial bureaucrats and education.
A digital revolution at schools is not in sight in most countries. Merely words, no quick action. This is an educational disaster.
This multiple political failure of education politicians and their school bureaucrats is jeopardizing the future of our children as well the foundation of our prosperity.
- Memory first still with new Google and AI?
The overload of teaching material – memorizing knowledge for the next exam forgotten after a few weeks – should finally be stopped. Do we still need this traditional way of learning in the age of Smartphone, Google and YouTube? Why should children still be trained as short-term knowledge silos?
Shouldn’t we radically adapt knowledge transfer with new methods and make better use of the time then available for other things?
- More mental problems – Happiness learning needed.
A new study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveals an increasing number of mental problems among young people. Their well-being is decreasing. They feel pressured by the demands of school, are irritable and nervous. We produce unhappy people – is this socially just and humane? It will also cost us billions in necessary social assistance later on.
Wouldn’t it also be better if our children and adolescents also learn what is needed for a joyful life? For example, values and virtues such as helpfulness, empathy, modesty, tolerance and openness. Self-confidence and joy of life (Fit for Future). Cheerfulness, stamina, health, balanced nutrition and fitness.
They don’t learn all this at outdated schools. Antiquated methods and practices of education are not future-oriented; they are a waste of taxpayers’ money and human resources. Why not recognise what is necessary, even though many understand that these contents are important? In our globalised world the educational focus must be on future skills. State authorities are not a museum, but service providers. Their job is to deliver what promises a good future for its citizen and funds the community.
- Less talented students are sorted out and wasted.
Should all students learn the same thing? In a schematic manner, as practiced in military training. Why is there not more diversity in schools? More individuality, each according to his or her own possibilities? Not only in the choice of subjects, but truly individual promotion of each pupil according to his or her talents and abilities.
Why should a future master baker also learn physics? Shouldn’t schools, like modern assessment centres, determine each pupil’s strengths and support them individually? Testimonials as support in everyday life. These could reveal how each pupil can put his or her strengths and wishes into practice. Instead of mere evaluation, pupils need active and individual support.
Which professions have a chance in the dawning Fourth Industrial Revolution? What do young people have to learn? Do we take this into account when planning our schools today?
Aren’t we wasting an incredible amount of human capital and also producing unhappy pupils if schools only sift out the best and leave the weak behind, instead of promoting everyone individually according to ability? That applies both to future baker masters and highly gifted physicists.
The education system often fails promoting the weakest.
The portion of young people without a lower secondary school certificate has increased. 50,000 pupils leave schools in Germany every year without a qualification.
In Denmark, the second happiest country in the world, the educational model has been drastically changed. The focus is on the child’s education as a personality in its own right, rather than on retrievable knowledge. In classes of one hour a week, children between 6 and 16 years of age also learn empathy as well as understanding other people. They describe their problems and listen to their classmates learning how to resolve difficult situations creatively and practically.
In its study “Schule 4.0”, the Roland Berger Foundation in Munich states:
“We must enable educational equity, promote the understanding of democracy, address the shortage of skilled workers and make use of digital opportunities. There is no such thing as an untalented child. The key is the individual support of each student. We are neglecting the promotion of talent. The educational landscape pays too little attention to children from difficult social environments. They fall out of sight. There are highly interesting visions for tomorrow’s education that are worth trying out”.
The gap between the outdated schools of educational bureaucrats and ideologists and the new possibilities and visions of the best schools is growing ever wider. This is a scandal damaging the foundation of the state and neglecting youth’s happiness. Above all, it harms the socially weaker offspring and thus has grossly anti-social effects”.
- Universities need reforms as well.
And our universities?
In “Arts and Humanities”, the universities of Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, University of California, Stanford and Yale occupy the top positions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Berkeley and Oxford lead the “Engineering and Technology” segment.
Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford and Johns Hopkins are at the top of the “Life Science and Medicine” rankings.
In “Natural Science” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford hold top rankings.
In “Social Science and Management” Harvard, London School of Economics, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge are top performers.
But most universities produce mediocrity. In teaching and research and among graduates.
The main reason: They are overburdened with bureaucracy, conformist, not very creative and fail to promote individual talent.
But you can only succeed in a globalised world if you are a top performer. This is the only way to create work and prosperity for everyone, including factory workers and the poor. Who has failed and what needs to be done?
Our universities provide knowledge that is often too theory-oriented and detached. Of course, students must acquire more specialised knowledge there than at school.
But we need much more than that. Students do not learn the skills they need in today’s modern working world.
They need more Einstein-like creativity, as well as enthusiasm for their subject as well as stamina.
Top performance derives from “love of the subject” (says Steve Jobs). Also joy of life instead of endless stress. Students don’t learn all this at universities.
Their expensive education is largely useless and only useful for a diploma. It is hardly more than a piece of paper rather than a certificate of ability. That is my experience as an entrepreneur in recruiting young people with impressive degrees and too few job skills.
There is a wide educational gap between demand and reality spanning from kindergarten to university. This wastes taxpayers’ money, time, energy and does not produce the top performance required in global competition. It also makes too many children unhappy or maladjusted.
We need a 180-degree turnaround in education. A creative offensive without ideological blinkers. A good future will only be possible following an educational revolution.
We must build a completely new education system, in which pupils and students not only learn what suits their interests and talents, but what they can really use in their lives and careers. Making them fit for life, content and happy. Everything else must be dropped. It is best to copy role models from all over the world.
Good schools and universities also need outstanding, motivated and digitally literate teachers and professors. They are overloaded with bureaucratic formalities – which could be dealt with in a simple app. The reformed schools and universities also must provide more leeway for greater enthusiasm of teachers and professors. To do so, they need freedom of choice, less ministerial bureaucracy and teaching standards, and a salary commensurate with their importance. Why not pay the best teachers and professors at the best schools and universities according to their performance?
