By: Emilie Thomas, CEO and Founder, oktopi
By 2030, the global skills gap will reach $8.5T and 1 billion individuals will need to be reskilled to meet the job demand globally. On a regional level, countries like the UAE and KSA have made youth skills development national priorities with major reforms over the past year. Countries like Egypt still struggle with high classroom density amongst other challenges, resulting in over 60% of K-12 students relying on private tutoring to maintain academic standing.
Current academic institutions- who have produced 200 million learners worldwide in the last 200 years- won’t be able to close this gap on their own. We need alternative, technology-driven solutions to scale learning to fill these jobs.
Going beyond content
The first attempts of scalability have been content driven; self-paced courses packed with lecture materials, coursework and peer evaluations gave rise to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which are beneficial to those who want to upskill or skill themselves. This opened access to courses taught at college level by experts to a wider audience. However, over time data has shown that completion rates is steadily declining, currently between 4-8%. Only those who have the discipline to spend time to complete these courses see the true benefit. There is no doubt we need this content out there, but it’s just one part of the solution. The opportunity today for technology providers is to successfully understand how to digitalize and augment content delivery with human interactivity.
Human-centered technology
Access to teachers beyond the traditional classroom environment is an essential piece to scaling effectively. Students don’t just need content; they need the emotional support to motivate them to become better, more confident learners. However, teachers are overworked and underpaid. Technology can play a key role in streamlining routine work and shouldering much of that workload to free up their time to provide this much-needed support at scale. However, less than 4% of digital spend is on Education & Training, so the digitalization rate in the MENA region is still very low, which is surprising in a highly connected region with over 80% internet penetration. We conducted a lot of interviews with teachers over the past two years and found that they are not comfortable with education technology; many found it too complicated and expensive. This resistance from users slows down the highly needed digitalization process. To truly transform teaching and scale learning in the region, EdTech needs to be human-centered and affordable- this is our mission at oktopi: to democratizing EdTech to teaching communities in the region and around the world.
We also need to look towards people with extensive industry experience that can qualify to coach and mentor potential talent. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook have recognized this and now offer courses for people to learn from experts within their organizations, get certified and be qualified to apply for tech jobs. This is a great start; technology can scale this approach to making experts from any company more accessible to those looking to start out in a STEM career for example, or those looking to pivot into tech. By widening the definition of teachers and equipping them with simplified EdTech solutions, we can reduce the barrier of entry to teaching and scale it much faster.
Meaningful analytics
Educators and trainers need to have accountability and track progress in a meaningful way. AI-powered tools and especially intelligent live integrations will help educators better understand the specific needs, context, interest, social background, etc. of their students while being able to scale this personalization process. Indeed, data and AI will help trainers understand patterns and trends in their cohorts, as well as engagement, helping them organize and manage their cohorts beyond simple ERP functionalities but in ways that allow them to nurture learning interactions in a hybrid classroom, study group, or training environment.
The future is hybrid
In a recent study, 75% of students stated they prefer a hybrid learning system over fully offline or fully online. In Dubai, 40% of parents are interested in alternative forms of education for their children.
The classroom of tomorrow will be personal, collaborative, and global. It is no longer going to be the traditional, standardized classroom where the teacher holds the knowledge in front of students, delivering the same content to everyone at the same time. The classroom of tomorrow will embrace and welcome many different learners from many different backgrounds and ages. It is a learner-first environment, where educators and students create personalized learning experiences together in a collaborative space. This classroom will definitely be hybrid and global, in the sense that learning can happen anywhere at any time. But it must be personal, meaningful and relatable to each learners’ needs. By combining simplified and affordable EdTech, a wider pool of teachers and AI-powered analytics, we can transform teaching and scale learning effectively to close the global skills gap.
