Work without Jobs by Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau - Summary of some key arguments

Work without Jobs - How to reboot your organisation's work operating system by Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau 

The central argument of Work without Jobs is that traditional 'jobs' should be 'deconstructed' into their underlying components, such as tasks and projects; with the complementary result that jobholders are seen in terms of their capabilities and skills.

This shift essentially would see the end to the 'job description'; and C.V.s would focus more on capabilities and skills, rather than experience in the form of educational milestones and previous job titles.

The approach 'requires fundamentally rethinking concepts like work, leadership, culture and organization' (p.ix)

"The new work operating system will require a profound change in the mindset and behaviour of leaders. It requires managers to think in terms of how tasks and projects are accomplished, not how jobs are organized." (p.100)

The authors employ the analogy of computer operating systems:

• The old, traditional Operating System - categorises work into job and jobholders into worker through an employment relationship. It is characterised by job descriptions, job hierarchies and job qualifications.
• The new Operating System - 'deconstructs jobs into their components and allows work to be perpetually reinvented by recombining those granular elements' (p.xi). It embraces a wider view of how work gets done embracing 'the gig economy' and 'alternative work arrangements' such as freelancers, contractors and volunteers (p.xii). 'The new world of work is one "beyond employment".' (p.xv)

Jesuthasan and Boudreau believe that this tradition OS 'is too cumbersome and ill-suited to the future.' (p.xi) and 'work systems (e.g planning, sourcing, choosing, assigning developing, engaging, rewarding) must evolve to reflect this new language of work'.

The authors propose that organisations break down their deparmental silos and develop internal platforms that allow talent to flow to work (such as projects) - effecting creating the opportunity for work to be done by anyone skilled to do it, be they brought in from outside the organisation (external gigs) or within the organisation ("inside gigs").

"The key is optimally and perpetually reinvent work by combining options such as the following: (p.xxx)

1. Talent in fixed roles with regular full-time employees.
2. Talent who flows to tasks and assignments - perhaps because their enabling capabilities are required in short-term specific burst by several different work processes (e.g. a freelancer or project-basd data scientist who moves between projects in marketing, HR and operations as needed.)
3. Talent who are in hybrid roles that are partially fixed because of work volume or skills dedicated to a job, but who can flow to specific challenges as needed (such roles often emerge from internal talent marketplaces where regular jobholders take on additional project work).

Impact of Automation

Jesuthasan and Boudreau acknowledge that automation has a significant part to play in the future of work. Their approach is summarised by the following four principles:

1. Start with the work (i.e. deconstructed current and future tasks) - not with existing jobs;
2. Combine humans and automation (not replacing one with the other);
3. Consider the full array of human work engagements (e.g. employment, gig, freelance, alliances, projects, other alternative work arrangements);
4. Consider allowing talent to flow to work (this might be facilitated by an internal or external platform).

Tasks need to be evaluated according to the skill level that is required - basic repetitive tasks should be autotmated; "below license " tasks that cannot be automated should an unskilled, gig or trainee worker where possible; leaving highly skilled workers to focus on "top of license" tasks. (p.139)

Implications for education (pp.127-33)

Jesuthasan and Boudreau touch briefly on the implications for education, whilst acknowledging that a full discussion of the implications on education is beyond the scope of the book.  The new Work OS "means shifiting from a focus on worker education as degrees to focus on deconstructed learning and capabilities." (p.127)

The authors advocate a much more flexible approach to learning, arguing for "stackable credentials" ("part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time and move an individual along a careerpath or up a career ladder.") See 'More students are stacking credentials en route to a degree' Wired June 2, 2020.

Drawing on the work of Evelyn Glanzglass of the Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success, they highlight that the following challenges need to be overcome for this to happen (p.130-32):

1. Create a common langue for workplace and educational credentials;
2. Develop a common system of the transfer (portability) and value of credentials between institutions;
3. Bridge silos between and within educational institutions;
4. Overcome the disconnect between credit and noncredit course offerings;
5. Provide financial aid for deconstructed credentials, not only degrees;
6. Optimize and integrate the mix of learning in traditional classrooms, online, and experience.

Invisible Women - by Caroline Criado-Perez - Book Summary

Some books change society - Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez sets out to be one of those. It is a book that every legislator, every employer, indeed, everyone who believes in a truly equal society should read.

The core argument is simple:  

• There is a significant gender data gap because most of the data which we collect is not sex-disaggregated.
• This matters because 'data determines how resources are allocated' (p.256)
• This means that 'Male is the default Human' with a consequence that
• The world is designed by men for men and this is not working (and, at times, dangerous) for women.
• Furthermore, 'Gender neutral does not automatically mean gender equal' (p.309)

Criado-Perez demonstrates this thesis by looking in turn at range of issues which illustrate that women have different priorities and needs:

Daily Life

• 'Women's travel patterns tend to be more complicated' than men's because they do more unpaid care work (p.30).
• Women have different needs re toileting (this is a safety issue both in terms of hygiene and attacks from men). This strikes a chord with anyone who has witnessed the queues for women's toilets

Workplace

'Women's work, paid and unpaid, is the backbone of our society and our economy' (p.142).

•  'Women do the majority of unpaid work irrespective of the proportion of household income they bring in' (p.71) - 'Globally, 75% of unpaid work is done by women'. This has implications of women's health and financial status. There is a need for properly paid maternity leave.
• 'Women continue to be disadvantaged by a working culture that is based on the ideological belief that male needs are universal' (p.86). 
• There is a significant gender pay gap, which needs addressing - collecting and analysing data on hiring procedures to see whether these are gender neutral is a good place to start (p.110).
• There are a range of occupational health issues which affect women differently to men (Chapter 5)
• There are significant issues with sexual harassment at work (estimated 50% of women in the EU p.137) which need addressing.
• 'The culture of paid work as a whole needs a radical overhaul. It needs to take into account that women are not the unencumbered workers the traditional workplace has been designed to suit' (p.91).

Design

There is a 'one-size-fits-men approach to supposedly gender-neutral products [which] is disadvantaging women' (p.157).

• The problem is not women, it is with male-based design. 
• Examples: Grand Piano keyboard width (p.157), Smartphones (p.159), Voice-recognition software (p.162 - if it doesn't work for a woman - try lowering your voice!); online datasets (p.164).
• Women find it difficult to get funding for design ideas. One factor is that '93% of VCs are men and men back men' (p.171).  'Given the male domination of VCs, data gaps are particularly problematic when it comes to tech aimed at women' (p.174).
• 'The [male-dominated] tech industry is rife with examples of tech that forgot about women' (p.176).
• 'Car design has a long and ignominious history of ignoring women' (p.185). 'When a women is involved in a car crash she is 47% more likely to be seriously injured than a man, and 71% more likely to be moderately injured . . . She is also 17% more likely to die' (p.186).

Medicine

We have 'a medical system which, from root to tip, is systematically  discriminating against women, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated and misdiagnosed' (p.196)

• There are significant sex differences (pp.198ff):
• fundamental mechanical workings of the heart
• lung capacity
• women are 3x more likely to develop an autoimmune disease
• blood-markers for autism - etc
• 'Because women have largely been excluded from medical research, this data is severely lacking' (p.199) ... 'The failure to include women in medical trials is a historical problem that has its roots in seeing the male body as the default human body' (p.201).
• 'The lack of sex-disaggregated data affects our ability to give women sound medical advice' (p.208).
• There are many drugs and treatments that don't work for women.
• Yentyl Syndrome: 'women are misdiagnosed and poorly treated unless their symptoms or diseases conform to that of men' (p.217).
• There is a lack of research into medical issues that mainly or only affect women (p.229)

'Women are dying, and the medical world is complicit. It needs to wake up.' (p.216)

Public Life

'The failure to measure unpaid household services is perhaps the greatest gender gap of all.' (p.241)

• Unpaid work is excluded from definitions of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 'The omission of housewives from national income computation distorts the picture' (Paul Studenski, p.241).
• 'The upshot of the failure to capture all this data is that women's unpaid work seems to be seen as a costless resource to exploit' (Sue Himmelweit, p.244)
• Taxation: 'There's a fairly simple reason why so many tax systems discriminate against women, and that is that we don't systematically collect data on how tax systems affect them' (p.260)

'Together with our woman-blind approach to GDP and public spending, global tax systems are not simply failing to alleviate gendered poverty: they are driving it.' (p.264)

• 'The presence of women in politics makes a tangible difference to the laws that get passed' (p.266).
• Discussion of women in politics - and a call for electoral reform.
• 'The evidence is clear: politics as it is practised today is not a female-friendly environment' (p.281).
• 'When you exclude half the population from a role in governing itself, you create a gender gap a the very top' (p.285)
• 'Female politicians are not operating on a level playing field' (p.286)

Disaster Situations

• 'The failure to include women in post-disaster efforts can end up in farce.' (p.290). This is illustrated with examples from Gujurat in 2001; Miami 1992 Hurricane Andrew; New Orleans 2005 Hurricane Katrina
• 'The presence of women at the negotiating table not only makes it more likely that an agreement will be reached, it also makes it more likely that the peace will last' (p.294).
• 'Women are disproportionately affected by conflict, pandemic and natural disaster ... Domestic violence against women increases when conflict breaks out' (p.296).
• 'The data gap when it comes to sexual abuse is compounded in crisis settings by powerful men who blur the lines between aid and sexual assault' (p.306)
• Homelessness: 'women are actually more likely to experience homelessness than men' (p.306)

Afterword

• Criado-Perez identifies three important themes that define women's relationship with the world:

1. The female body: this needs to be taken into account in design medical, technological and architectural.
2. Male sexual violence against women: we need to measure it and design out world to account for it - not to do so is to limit women's liberty.
3. Unpaid care work: we need to measure this and to make it more equitable.

'Failing to collect data on women and their lives means that we continue to naturalise sex and gender discrimination.' (p.314)

One major reason why gender data gap needs to be addressed as a matter of priority is because 

'the introduction of Big Data into a world full of gender data gaps can magnify and accelerate already-existing discriminations.' (p.136)

The Book

This is a very well researched book. It is fully referenced and indexed allowing the reader easily to follow up on the points made. 

Growth Headset? The Use of VR and AR in Schools

The lift doors closed, and I ascended to the 45th floor. When they opened again, it was not to the ubiquitous corridor, but to a plank extending out from the building. It was a test: did I have the nerve to walk out there? I was experiencing acute anxiety and the inevitable vertigo associated with looking down from a skyscraper. I froze – I could not leave the safety of the lift. I was simply terrified. I had failed. So I removed the headset.

The Power of VR

It was at this point that I realised the power of Virtual Reality. Part of my brain knew that I was in the safety of a classroom room in the Sixth form block at my school and that the plank, in reality, was an expanse of carpet extending in front of me. Despite knowing that I was in no immediate danger, I was terrified. My senses had been hijacked by Virtual Reality and some primal sense of survival deep inside me had kicked in and try as I might I could not overcome it. The ‘Plank Experience’ has been part of our IB Diploma Psychology unit on fear and anxiety for a couple of years now. It is an extraordinary way of approaching the topic. It is one of many examples of how Virtual Reality is transforming the classroom experience of pupils.

Trips in VR

At a very basic level, Virtual Reality gives almost limitless scope for teachers to take pupils on trips anywhere in the world without leaving the grounds. A class can visit China and experience what it is like to walk up and down the crumbling steps of the Great Wall, they can take a stroll along Wall Street, gasp at the view from the top of the Burj Khalifa, or even dive the Great Barrier Reef. In the past six months, Year 7 went to Africa, Year 3 have been to the Pyramids, Year 4 visited the Vikings, Year 5 went to Ancient Greece and Year 1 even travelled into Space. All these ‘school trips’ are available in the classroom within a matter of minutes – a further bonus is that there’s no disruption to the curriculum, no additional paperwork, no buses to order, and the hi-vis jackets can stay in the cupboard. 

Over the past twenty years, we have seen videos, DVDs, classroom projectors, interactive whiteboards, 3D projectors and computer games recruited to improve the learning experience of pupils. So, is Virtual Reality just the latest in that long line of new technologies which teachers harnessed in the service of education? Is it just another gimmick to grab the attention of a new generation? It is understandable that teachers and school leaders are sceptical.

Research-backed Pedagogy

We know that each invention that is deployed in schools requires the development of an effective pedagogy which enables teachers to get the most out of the new technology. This, in turn, poses several important questions about the value and effectiveness of the new technology in promoting learning, understanding, empathy and in improving learning outcomes. With the luxury of hindsight, too many schools deployed new technologies without really knowing what they were doing or why they were doing it. History teaches us that effective implementation is facilitated by twin drivers of collaboration and research. With this in mind, the Independent Schools Council Digital Strategy Group launched an action research project last spring. The study was managed by Ian Phillips, Assistant Headteacher at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School (@IanHabs) and involved teachers and pupils from seven schools completing questionnaires and interviews on the impact of the introduction of Virtual Reality into the classroom. 

The results of the study were published in November as Growth Headset: Exploring the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Schools written by Dr James Mannion (@RethinkingJames). The most common theme to emerge from the research was that Virtual Reality technology can be used to facilitate learning in two ways: first, through visualisation and seeing in 3-D; and, secondly, by providing an interactive and more immersive learning environment which makes topics more memorable compared to textbooks. Whilst some teachers in the study expressed concerns about the logistics of using Virtual Reality in the classroom, the majority of students and teachers were able to share examples of where they felt using Virtual Reality had had a positive impact on learning, or where it is likely to have a positive impact on learning in the future. Thus, the Growth Headset report provides some initial insight into how Virtual Reality might be deployed in schools and seeks to answer some of the important questions about the place that this technology might play in schools over the coming years.

The verdict

The use of Virtual Reality in the classroom is still in its infancy but there are already signs that this is a much more powerful technology than its more passive predecessors. The lessons from the pioneers is that VR is not just another way of conveying information, but there is something distinctively powerful about the fact that the viewer is in control. This makes the experience active and so immersive that they evoke an emotional as well as a rational response. 

Virtual Reality allows the teacher to put a young person into the shoes of another person. Early adopters are divided over whether or not Virtual Reality is what Chris Milk in his TED Talk describes as the ‘ultimate empathy machine’ . Some believe that Virtual Reality has huge potential to foster greater awareness of what it is like to be a refugee or live with a disability; and that its contribution to the educational armoury will be as an effective tool for teaching empathy, a trait so often lacking in teenagers. However, some respondents in the ISC Research project expressed scepticism, as can be seen in the following exchange: 

 I’ve heard a lot of positive things about the creation of empathy, and I am very sceptical about that… [they say] it's a wonderful experience to be able to teach students to be empathetic like what's it like to live in a slum. And I feel that they just can't be right because it's a bit like giving someone a seat and saying “this is what it's like to not be able to use your legs”, or “this is what it feels like to not be able to hear”. The students will never be able to know that because that's something that's really personal and I think that we dumb down the experience by suggesting that in any way we can replicate it. It might give an insight, but it doesn't create empathy in and of itself. 

Best Practice

Going forward, we need to develop policies and protocols to disseminate best practice. For example, at JESS, we have found (the hard way) that primary children are best using Virtual Reality headsets sitting down and that that they hold the viewer to their eyes, rather than being strapped on, so that they can disengage from the experience more easily. Furthermore, as my lift experience illustrates, Virtual Reality is a very powerful tool which can elicit a whole range of emotional responses from the participants and thus needs to be used with care. Teachers need to be sensitive and alert to the potential that the experience of ‘going over the top’ from a First World War trench might be so real that it is traumatic. Lessons need to be planned so that there is time to allow children to talk about their experiences and to ‘decompress’ before heading off to their next lesson. 

One of the determining factors in whether or not Virtual Reality has an impact on wider schooling will be the extent to which industry can supply a broad range of high-quality content that starts with the curriculum rather than teachers having to appropriate apps for use in the classroom. As with so many new technologies, educational priorities must drive the technological ones. Without this, it is likely that the adoption of Virtual Reality in schools remains the preserve of a few schools with dedicated enthusiasts. 

• The ISC Digital Strategy report can be downloaded from http://iscdigital.co.uk/growth-headset-the-report/ 
• Videos of most of the VR projects at JESS, Dubai, can be found on the JESS Digital YouTube Channel 

This article was published in Tes on 29/01/2019 as Virtual reality: not the edu-fad it is made out to be?

The Fourth Education Revolution – Anthony Seldon – Book Summary

The Fourth Education Revolution is about likely impact of Artificial Intelligence on society. Sir Anthony Seldon, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham and previously Headteacher of two top HMC boarding schools, Brighton and Wellington Colleges, not only discusses the (AI) on education, but, perhaps more importantly, explores the philosophical and moral debates about the place of AI in society. Thus, this is an important book not just for those of us in education, but also beyond the profession. We could not be in better hands.

The book forms a logical structure argument for change. The first six chapters set the context for the debate by:

1. reviewing the first three educational revolutions; 
2. discussing what it means to be an educated person; 
3. discussing Five Intractable Problems with Conventional Education: 
4. discussing What is Intelligence? 
5. discussing What is Artificial Intelligence? 
6. reviewing the state of AI in the USA and the UK 

(Each of these chapters is worthy of consideration and is an interesting introduction and summary of these important areas)

The key chapter for secondary school educationists is his discussion of ‘The future of AI in Schools’ (Chapter 7). Here Seldon’s methodology (after Suskind and Suskind) is to establish a ten-part model for education by aggregating the tasks of the teacher and the student:

Five Traditional Tasks in Teaching: 

1. Preparation of material; 
2. Organisation of the classroom/ learning space; 
3. Ensuring that all students are engaged in learning; 
4. Setting and marking assignments; 
5. Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports. 

Five Traditional Activities in Learning: 

1. Memorising knowledge; 
2. Applying the knowledge; 
3. Turning knowledge into understanding; 
4. Self-assessment and diagnosis; 
5. Reflection and the development of autonomous learning.

He then argues how each of five traditional factors in teaching will be transformed by AI over the coming decades: 

1. Preparation of material will be done by ‘Curation specialists . . whose job it is to work with AI machines to author and identify the most appropriate material for particular student profiles.’ p.189 
2. Organisation of the learning space: ‘Separate classrooms will disappear in time and replaced by pods and wide open, flexible spaces which can be configured for individual and flexible collective learning. Sensors will monitor individual students, measuring their physiological and psychological state, picking up on changes faster and more accurately than any teacher could.’ p.191 
3. Presentation of material to optimise learning/deeper understanding: ‘The flexibility of visual representation with AI allows material to be presented to students which renders much teacher exposition redundant.’ p.192 
4. Setting assignments and assessing/self-assessing progress: ‘Advances in real-time assessment enabled by AI will virtually eliminate this waiting period [the time lag between students being assessed and them receiving feedback on their performance} and ensure feedback comes when most useful for learning.’ pp.194-5. 
5. Preparation for terminal examinations and writing summative reports: ‘All this will be swept away by AI. . . . In its place will be attention to continuous data reporting, and real time feedback that will help students discover how to learn autonomously and how to address any deficiencies on their own.’ p.196 

And so to the $100.000.000 question: Will we need teachers in the future? Seldon is clear ‘We do not believe that it is either possible or desirable for AI to eliminate teachers from education’ but he goes on to point out that ‘the application of AI places more responsibility for learning in the hands of the student, for how their time is spent and on what, even from a young age.’ p.205. ‘AI will change however the job of the teacher forever. By supporting teaching in all their five traditional tasks, AI will usher in the biggest change the profession has ever seen.’ p.206. Interestingly Seldon recognises that remote teaching is a distinct possibility: ‘Imminent advances in virtual technologies will mean too that teachers no longer have to be physically present to offer their services.’ p.206

This is well drafted and highly informed argument. It was a joy to read. The only surprise and disappointment for me was that he did not address the 'Elephant-in-the-room' questions of how the traditional examination structures (especially GCSE and A-level in the UK) will be dismembered and on what time-scale. We can all see that the direction of travel is that GCSE and A-level will probably 'will be swept away by AI ' in twenty years' time, but how we get there and what the drivers will be is one of the greatest questions facing UK education over the coming years. These are essentially political questions and ones on which he, given his intimate knowledge of UK politics, Sir Anthony is uniquely qualified to comment - let's hope he does in due course.

How Disruptive Innovation may change schools in the future: Lessons from Dubai

Presentation given at the HMC Conference in Belfast on Wednesday 4th October 2017.

Dubai The UAE has the fastest growing private schools’ sector in the world; and Dubai has more international schools than any other city. This rapid expansion has necessitated innovation and has led to the development of new models and structures for schooling. For these reasons, Dubai is a strong candidate to be the birthplace of a “disruptive innovation” that will transform secondary education around the globe. So what lessons can we learn from the private schools’ sector in Dubai? 

Four lessons from Dubai 

1. The Not-for-Profit (NFP) Sector was not equipped to meet the rapid growth in demand for schooling. The earliest international schools in Dubai were established in the 1960s and 1970s with financial support from the Ruler, Sheikh Rashhid, and the Oil and Gas companies and supporting industries. They were established as Not-for-Profit entities. NFP organisations are by their very nature more conservative and were not equipped to expand and develop sufficiently quickly and so For-Profit companies have filled the space. The NFP schools remain the top schools in Dubai but today they represent only about 3% of the school places in Dubai. 
2. The For-Profit groups offer education at different price points: The For-Profit sector in Dubai, unsurprisingly is driven by the economic drivers of ‘return-on-investment’, ‘economies of scale’, scalability, differentiated markets and keep costs down – especially of staffing. The For-Profit groups offer Premium, Mid-range and Budget in the same way that airlines offer First Class, Business and Economy seats on their planes. The differentiators between the price points are school and class size, the range of facilities available in the school, the qualifications of teachers, and the amount of teacher-pupil contact time in the week. 
3. The For-Profit Groups invest in central I.T. systems: Large schools groups have levered technology to achieve economies of scale to achieve a measure of standardisation and to share best practice. For example, Nord Anglia and GEMS have both developed global CPD portals for teachers; and GEMS have developed a shared VLE for their schools. 
4. Schools in Dubai embrace innovation GEMS Wellington Silicon Oasis is pioneering “Blended Learning” IB program, where students use a combination of online resources and video-conferencing. JESS currently has a group who are experimenting with Virtual Reality technology as a way of making JESS lessons available beyond the physical bounds of the school. 

Research into Alternative Models for Secondary Schooling – Replacing Teachers 

My research was for a Dissertation for MSc Executive Masters in Management with Ashridge-Hult Business School (May 2017). This (small sample) study investigated why alternative models for secondary schooling have not been adopted in the way that they are being adopted in tertiary education, by comparing the attitudes of School Principals (educationalists) to the attitudes of School Owners/CEOS (business people). The study broke down (‘decomposed’ – after Susskind 2015) into seven tasks which specialist teachers (e.g. a Physics teacher) do: 

1. Lesson Planning 
2. Teaching – to transmit/impart subject information 
3. Teaching – to set tasks to groups of students 
4. Classroom Management and Supervision 
5. Working with Individual Students 
6. Assessment, Grading and Monitoring 
7. Parental Communication and Reporting 

The two study groups were asked if it would be acceptable to practice in their school for that task to be done by an alternative to a specialist teacher:

1. A Non-Specialist - A qualified teacher who is not a qualified specialist in the relevant subject to be taught; 
2. A Teaching Assistant who is not a qualified teacher; 
3. A Specialist Teacher via Video-Conferencing - A qualified subject specialist teacher who is not physically present who contacts the students via video-conferencing. 
4. An Online Learning Programme which students access via a computer in school. 

This study found that both School Owners/CEOs and School Leaders are resistant to replacing “specialist classroom teachers” with “qualified teachers who are not subject specialists” and with “teaching assistants”; but found an openness to replacing them with “specialists teaching via video-conferencing” or through students using “online learning platforms”. 

This study found that the potential “drivers” towards the adoption of these models are: 

1. Improved Pedagogy 
2. Reducing Costs 
3. Addressing Teacher recruitment issues 

This study found that the potential “blockers” to the adoption of these models are:

1. Concerns about the Quality of Student Learning; 
2. Concerns about a Change in Ethos of the School; 
3. Concerns about Parental Reaction. 

This study found that alternative models for secondary schooling have not been adopted because both the majority of School Owners/CEOs and School Leaders see no reason to change as the status quo still works. However, it is likely a potential shortage of specialist teachers will serve as the catalyst for the adoption of alternative models for schooling.  

Looking into the Crystal Ball – Five Prophecies for the Future of Schooling around the World 

So if we apply the principles of Dubai’s For-Profit sector to the global Learning-School problem, what solutions might we see?

1. Education For-Profit will become the norm around the world.
   
   Not-for-Profit education is not equipped to meet the global demand for education, the inevitable consequence is that the For-Profit sector will fill the void. 
2. Being taught by a specialist teacher in a classroom at Secondary level will be a luxury.
   
   Technology won’t replace teachers everywhere – but it will in many places. In the future, it will only be Premium Secondary Education that will be delivered by specialist teachers in classrooms drawing on a range of real and virtual resources. This will remain the norm in the UK Independent Sector and in top International Schools around the world. Budget Secondary Education will not have subject teachers, but will be delivered totally through online courses on learning platforms. However, for many young people around the world this will be better than the present situation of receiving no education at all. Mid-Range Secondary Education will be delivered by “super-teachers” via Virtual-Reality Conferencing. The For-Profit will invest in new technologies in order to maximise the impact of teachers and these will become much more common around the world, particular where Governments are funding schooling. For example, the US Public School system is in the vanguard of this (for an overview see Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning, 2015). To date there has been little appetite for adopting this model in the UK as was witnessed earlier this year when counsellors rejected the plans to use Blended Learning at the Ark Pioneer Academy in Barnet (see TES 30/01/2017). 
3. Blended Learning and Virtual Reality Teaching will be the disruptors of Secondary education.
   
   Blended Learning has scope both to raise standards by personalising education and to reduce costs. As the platforms and content improve, we will see their wider adoption. We also already have ‘Virtual Teaching’ through video conferencing which enables pupils around the world to be taught live by a remote teacher. Furthermore, ‘Virtual Reality’ already enables pupils to travel through time and space – to experience the ancient Colosseum in Rome, life in the trenches or a World-War One dog-fight with the Red Baron. Once these two technologies are combined so that we have ‘Virtual Reality Teaching’, it will be possible for a pupil can put on a headset and ‘feel’ as if they are in a real classroom with a world-class teacher, or be taken on a virtual school visit to any place in time and space. 
4. There will be ‘superstar teachers’ commanding very high salaries.
   
   One of the consequences of the rise of Virtual Reality Teaching is that there will be the rise of superstar teachers. The For-Profit sector has a proven record of investing in talent where it can made wider savings. It will inevitably pay to attract top talent, particularly in shortage subjects and their global educational networks will provide a platform which will enable great Virtual Reality teachers will be able to reach millions of students. These teachers will inevitably be very well paid and, given the nature of the C21, it is likely that they will be famous and become celebrities. 
5. Primary Teachers will be assisted by Robots.
   
   Young children at a formative stage of development need human interaction to shape their learning, thus it is highly unlikely that it will ever be possible to replace teachers in primary schools with technological solutions. One consequence of the predictions for secondary education outlined above is that primary schooling will need to teach the skills to enable young people to access non-classroom based forms of education. It is quite possible that robots will replace Teaching Assistants, performing basic instructive tasks such as teaching basic mathematics and listening to children read. 

Final Thoughts on the Future of Schooling 

Prophecy is more about reading the signs of the time and working out a likely a future position from the current direction of travel, rather than predicting the future receiving some dislocated revelation from on high. Prophets are rarely popular because they are usually delivering a message that people don't want to hear. I believe that the signs for a possible future of schooling are there for all to see. In an ideal world every child in the world would receive the quality of education that is available at a HMC school but, for reasons of logistics alone, that isn’t going to happen. However, I do believe that technology has a very important part to play in giving every child the opportunity to have at least some form of basic education. Indeed, there is real scope here for Not-for-Profit schools to open their virtual doors and allow children around the world to experience the world-class teaching that takes place in our schools.  

Three Questions to consider 

1. What will the future workplace look like?
2. What will schools look like in the future? 
3. What should we be teaching young people to prepare them for the future? 

How “Virtual Reality Teaching” could help educate the world.

The Challenge 

One of the greatest challenges for Education in the Twenty-first Century is that there is an ever-increasing divide between the demand for learning and the supply of schooling. This is seen most obviously in the global shortage of teachers, but it extends to the dearth of school leaders, and to the unavailability of schools themselves.
 According to UNESCO (Institute of Statistics, 2013), there are currently 263 million children not in education and the world will need 3.3 million more primary teachers and 5.1 million more lower Secondary teachers by 2030. These statistics demonstrate that we are failing millions of young people. Our current model of teaching with a specialist standing in front of a class of 20-30 pupils is inefficient and unsustainable. We need to find a way to bring education to all. There is no easy answer to this problem, but I believe that “Virtual Reality Teaching” will be part of the solution.

Virtual Reality in the Classroom 

Most are familiar with Virtual Reality (VR) – it is transforming the Gaming industry and it is now finding its way into classrooms around the world. The technology is simple: it works very much in the same way that enabled a previous generation of children to enjoy 3D images through a Viewmaster. The headset projects a slightly different image to each eye, which gives a 3D effect. As the viewer moves his head to the left and right, the image moves giving a strong feeling of being in situ. By turning around, the viewer can see what is behind him; by looking up he can see what’s above him-it’s ‘real’!

What makes Virtual Reality different? 

The greatest difference between VR and, say, watching a DVD is that VR is an active rather than a passive process. It feels like the real experience. Because the viewer is controlling where he looks and what he focuses on, this inevitably leads to greater engagement. Indeed, Virtual Reality allows the user to experience what is going on in a way that feels authentic.

Personalised Learning 

At JESS, Dubai, we use VR extensively in our Primary schools to take children on virtual school trips traveling around the world, back in time and even into space. In the past few weeks at Year 5 have met some ancient Egyptians, Year 4 have been to London, Foundation 2 travelled to Mars and Year 6 went to Ancient Greece. The children ‘felt’ what it was like to be there and the experience helped them to develop mature responses at a significantly deeper level than would ever be possible from watching a video. Possibly the greatest strength of VR is that the experience is personalised – the child is in control of the experience, he can go at his own pace, choosing to look at what he wants, taking time to look for detail, moving on only when ready.

From Virtual Reality to Virtual Reality Teaching 

I believe that Virtual Reality technology is more than just the latest in the long line of technologies which can be harnessed by teachers to help them make their classrooms come alive. It has the potential to be the “disruptor” of education providing access to some of the best teaching in the world to millions of children who are currently not in education.

Proof of Concept: “Virtual Reality Teaching” 

“Virtual Reality Teaching” (VRT) has the potential to allow children in Calcutta to feel as if they are in a classroom at JESS, Dubai. Earlier this year, Steve Bambury, the Director of Innovation and Digital Learning at JESS, conducted a “proof-of-concept” test of VRT. We aimed to give students an immersive experience of being in a classroom, rather than passively watching a Video Conferencing screen. This involved putting a 360-degree camera in the second row of a classroom and running a live stream to a classroom next door where a student wearing a VR headset “participated virtually” in the lesson. The experience of the remote student was not perfect, there was a time delay and some buffering, but he felt like he was in the classroom. This has the potential to be revolutionary. The technical processor speed and network bandwidth issues will be resolved sooner rather than later in accordance with the inexorable progress of Moore’s Law. We are confident that it is only a matter of time that students will be able to attend class at JESS remotely.

“Virtual Reality English Language Teaching” 

The English Language teaching sector is a significant part of the global education industry. According to the British Council figures there were 1.5bn people learning and speaking English in 2014 and it is estimated that this will increase to 2bn people (25% of the global population) by 2020. The Export revenue for the UK’s English Language Teaching (ELT) sector was estimated at £1.2 billion (US$1.74 billion) for 2014 (Source: ICEF Monitor, Feb 2016). The demand for English Language Teaching is only set to increase as English extends its influence as the lingua franca. Virtual Reality Teaching is likely to become an important way in which learners will be able to gain access to the best teachers and interact with native speakers. Potential investors would be well advised to target the Far East in the first instance as this region is quick to embrace new technologies and already is an established market for English Language teaching.

Making “Virtual Reality Teaching” a Reality

"Virtual Reality Teaching" has enormous potential, but it will take more than a couple forward-thinking professionals in the UAE to make it happen. Technological development will have to combine with a robust educational pedagogy. We have a long way to go. 

I suspect that the technological development will come from Oculus, the leading VR company owned by Facebook. Understandably, having recently become a father, Mark Zuckerberg is becoming interested in education and he has the resources to make this vision happen. It is perhaps fitting that he then has the last word: 

“After Games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world, or consulting a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on your goggles at home.” 

This article was written for the English Language Gazette.

The Future of Schooling - Interview with Relocate Magazine

Interview with Relocate Magazine about the Future of Schooling, filmed at the COBIS Conference in Greenwich, London on 07/05/2017

The COBIS Future of Schooling Debate

This presenatation was given the 36th Annual COBIS Conference in Greenwich on Sunday 7th May, 2017

The Future of Schooling - Lessons from Dubai

This presentation was given at the 36th Annual COBIS Conference in Greenwich, London, on Sunday 7th May, 2017.

 

Has the time come to start replacing Secondary Teachers with Para-Teachers and the Application of Technology?

Ideal World v Reality

In an ideal world we would want every secondary school child to be taught by a suitably qualified specialist teacher, however we are far from that reality. 

• On a global level according to UNESCO, there are an estimated 263 million children who are not in education and the world will need 5.1 million more lower Secondary teachers by 2030 to meet future demand. 
• On a more parochial level, the UK National Audit Office report Training New Teachers (10 Feb 2016) showed that the proportion of physics classes taught by a teacher without a post A-level physics qualification rose from 21% in 2010 to 28% in 2014; Indeed the Institute of Physics in 2010 estimated that some 500 secondary schools in the UK didn't have a qualified Physics teacher.

Given that the teacher recruitment crisis is only set to get worse, has the time come to review the role of teachers and to look for new models for our schools?

In The Future of the Professions Richard and Daniel Susskind argue there needs to be new business models for education:

‘It is widely recognised that there is insufficient funding available to run high quality schools and universities if teachers and professors operate in the traditional way.’ (p.208)

Revisiting the Role of the Teacher

Susskind and Susskind  argue that professional work should be 'decomposed', that is broken down into constituent ‘tasks’ and that a 'Process Analyst' should determine if these tasks could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional or indeed  by the application of technology (See previous blogpost for a summary of some of their key arguments). 

So what of teaching? Can teaching can be decomposed and the tasks either delegated to a 'Para-Teacher' or performed by the application of technology?

Teaching Decomposed

It is undoubtedly possible to break down 'Teaching' into a whole range of tasks. Indeed Governments and Trade Unions around the world have a range of views of what should be (and what should not be) the tasks that teachers do. It is difficult to find either a consensus or a list that comes without a political agenda. However, the US Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics (2015) Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is fundamentally an official careers advice site, lists ten 'duties' of a high school teacher which appear in most other lists:

Screenshot of US Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for High School Teachers (captured 17/03/2017)

Process Analysis of the 10 teacher tasks:

We then need to determine which (if any) of these tasks could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional or indeed  by the application of technology.

Is doing this task not getting the most out of a qualified Physics teacher?

One way to facilitate tackling this question is to imagine a school that only has one suitably qualified Physics teacher when it really needs three. The school leader might want to maximise the impact that the one Physics teacher has on the teaching of Physics across the whole school. Which of the following tasks would the school leader be able to delegate to a lesser qualified Para-professional (or non-Physics graduate qualified teacher)? Can any of the tasks be carried out by the application of technology?

1. Planning Physics lessons;
2. Assessing students to evaluate their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses in Physics;
3. Teaching students Physics in full class settings or in small groups;
4. Adapting Physics lessons to any changes in class size;
5. Grading students’ assignments and exams to monitor progress in Physics;
6. Communicating with parents about students’ progress in Physics;
7. Working with individual students to challenge them, to improve their abilities in Physics, and to work on their weaknesses;
8. Preparing students for standardized Physics tests required by the state; 
9. Developing and enforcing classroom rules and administrative policies; 
10. Supervising students outside of the classroom—for example, at lunchtime or during detention;

A Process Analysis might decide that 

1. Planning Physics lessons needs to be done by a Physics professional, However, the planning of lessons could be centralised and done by one person who ideally (but not necessarily) would be in the school.
2. Assessing students might be done in a number of ways including by professional judgment of a Physics teacher; by tests marked by the Physics teacher or by a Para-Teacher with a mark scheme; and by online adaptive testing.
3. Teaching students might be done in a number of ways including by a Physics teacher physically in front of a class or by video-conferencing; by online lectures; and through online courses.
4. Adapting Physics lessons might be done most easily by a Physics professional, but can also be done by adaptive online courses.
5. Grading students’ assignments and exams by professional judgment of a Physics teacher or by a Para-Teacher based on assessment and objective criteria; and electronically as the result of online adaptive testing.
6. Communicating with parents about students’ progress might be done through traditional means such as written subject reports or parent-teacher meetings, but might also be done through teachers have 'live' online markbooks which are available to parents.
7. Working with individual students is best done by a Physics professional.
8. Preparing students for exams might be done by revision lessons run by a Physics professional, but increasingly there are online revision resources (e.g. BBC GCSE Bitesize) and online self-testing programs.
9. Developing and enforcing classroom rules is not directly Physics related and could theoretically be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional.
10. Supervising students outside of the classroom  could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional.

Decomposition and the Question of Quality of Outcomes for Student Learning

The next step is for the Process Analyst to determine the relative quality of outcomes for student learning of these teacher tasks being performed by a qualified classroom teacher following the traditional model and the alternatives: the 'Para-Teacher' or 'Application of Technology' models. 

If we accept that Assessing Students might be done by a Para-Teacher with a mark scheme or by online adaptive testing. are these alternative models better/similar/ worse for student learning  than assessments conducted by a qualified Teacher?

Whilst the qualified professional is likely to be qualitatively better at conducting many of the teacher tasks, it is quite possible that there are circumstances where the alternative models may be better, particularly when we take the matter of scale into consideration. For example, a teacher may be able to produce personalised learning plans which address individual concerns and go at an appropriate pace for each student for a small number of students, but this level of differentiation may not be possible when teaching a large number of sets and with large class sizes. Conversely, an online adaptive course with built-in assessments might be able to provide personalised learning plans and assessments for thousands of pupils at a time.

And so . . . .?

As the statistics given at the start of this post suggest, we are already facing a challenge of recruitment of specialist teachers. Many schools are already having to explore alternative models to staff lessons in 'shortage subjects'. 

We have to recognise that the traditional model of a suitably qualified specialist teacher standing in front of a class of 30 pupils is a luxury form of education which most societies can no longer afford.

Although many in the profession recoil at the thought of revisiting our traditional classroom model, it is time to abandon our idealism and find a way of delivering the best possible form of schooling that is practically possible. The 'Para-Teacher' and the 'Application of Technology' are likely to have a significant part to play in the future of secondary education.

The Future of the Professions by Richard and Daniel Susskind - Summary of some key ideas

Richard and Daniel Susskind's The Future of the Professions challenges the view that white collar jobs will be immune from the impact of technological advances into the workplace. Indeed, the authors go so far as to detail the road map 'how technology will transform the work of human experts':

'In the long run, increasingly capable machines will transform the work of professionals giving rise to new ways of sharing practical expertise in society' (p.303) 

with a consequence that

'Decades from now, today's professions will play a much less prominent role in society.' (p.271) 

They argue that reform of the professions is not only inevitable, but that it is long overdue.

The role of the professions - the Grand Bargain

At the heart of Susskind and Susskind's argument is a particular understanding of the relationship between society and the professions. 'The professions are responsible for many of the most important functions and services in society' and their fundamental role ‘is to provide access to knowledge and experience that non specialists lack’ (p.268).  Society affords the professions protection and status in return for providing these services fairly in an arrangement which they call 'the grand bargain':

'In acknowledgement of and in return for their expertise, experience, and judgement, which they are expected to apply in delivering affordable, accessible, up-to-date, reassuring, and reliable services  . . . we (society) place our trust in the professions in granting them exclusivity over a wide range of socially significant services and activities, by paying them a fair wage, by conferring upon them independence, autonomy, rights of self-determination, and by according them respect and status.' (p.23)

Thus the purpose of the professions is to provide solutions to issues which individuals within society commonly face: ill-health, disputes, lack of education, the need for news and navigating the tax system.

The authors believe that the professions are ripe for reform and should lose their privileged status because they have broken this bargain, in that they do not provide these services that are either 'affordable' or 'accessible':

'levels of access and affordability to the practical expertise that the professions provide fall short of acceptable. The combination of these two reasons - the importance of what they provide, and the current inadequacy of the provision - overwhelms the case to protect the craft.' (p.247 - also p.269)

Automation and Transformation of the Professions

The authors outline how automation is likely to come to the professions by examining some of the practices that have been adopted by those in the vanguard of change:

Education

• Online learning - Khan Academy etc.
• Flipped Blended Learning
• Learning Analytics

Law

• Document Assembly Systems (e.g. ContractExpress) which can generate high quality documents after interactive consultations with users.
• Online Dispute Resolution (e.g. Modria which is behind eBay and PayPal's resolution service)

Tax and Audit

• Online computerised tax preparation software (e.g. TurboTax in the US)
• Online Accounting software (e.g. Quickbooks)
• Computer-Assisted Audit Techniques (e.g. PwC's system, Aura)

Medicine

• 'Telemedicine' using video links to make diagnoses or to aid with operations from a distance;
• Robots assisting surgeons to conduct delicate operations with greater dexterity than is possible by a human;
• the rise of online medical platforms and 'GP intelligent monitoring', 'remote monitoring' by smart devices and apps;
• Robotic Pharmacy (e.g. the University of California at San Francisco which has a pharmacy staffed by a single robot);

Eight Patterns and Trends

Decomposition, Process Analysts, Para-professionals and Delegation

One of the most important observations that Susskind and Susskind make is that when we are talking about the future of the professions, we need to move on from seeing the machine v human debate in binary terms. They are not talking about a robot replacing a lawyer/teacher/doctor in the way that a robot might replace a human worker on the production line of a car manufacturing plant. However when we 'decompose' or break down what lawyers/teachers/doctors do into tasks, we can see there there is scope for some of these to replaced with automated systems - or indeed by lesser qualified human beings.

We argue that professional work should be decomposed, that is broken down into constituent ‘tasks’ – identifiable, distinct, and separate modules of work that make it up. Once decomposed, the challenge then is to identify the most efficient way of executing each type of task, constituent with the quality of work needed, the level of human interaction required, and the ease with which the decomposed tasks can be managed alongside one another and pulled together into a coherent offering. (p.212)

Leading on from this, the authors argue that one of the key roles for professional organisations in the future is that of the 'process analyst' whose role is 'to identify the level of person best suited for the range of decomposed tasks (p.124).

On analysis, it is frequently becoming apparent in various disciplines that para-professional who are sufficiently trained, knowledgeable, and equipped can undertake tasks that were previously taken on by senior professionals. (p.124-5)

The delegation to para-professionals may lead to replacement by automated systems:

The features of tasks in the workplace that make them amenable to delegation and para-professionalization - that they are well bounded and can, in part, be captured in standard processes - are precisely those features that render them strong candidates in due course for the application of technology (both automation and innovation). (p.125) 

Decomposition and Para-professionalism in Schools?

This all begs the question of whether or not teaching can be decomposed and the tasks either delegated to a 'Para-Teacher' or performed by the application of technology. This is the subject of my Master's Dissertation with the Ashridge-Hult Business School and I will be discussing some of the ideas here in a subsequent blogpost.

The Future of Schooling – A view from the Middle

This article was published in The National on 20th December 2016

The Challenge 

Source: Richard F. Elmore, Harvard University,

Supporting Strong Instructional Practice Feb 2015

One of the greatest challenges for Education in the Twenty-first Century is that there is an ever-increasing divide between the demand for learning and the supply of schooling. This is seen most obviously in the global shortage of teachers, but it extends to dearth of school leaders and to the unavailability of schools themselves. According to UNESCO, there are an estimated 263 million children who are not in education and the world will need 3.3 million more primary teachers and 5.1 million more lower Secondary teachers by 2030. There is no easy solution to this problem, but I believe that lessons from how the Middle East is addressing the problem may provide a solution that will work in other parts of the world. 

You might ask, ‘Why would a solution come from the Middle East? Why not from the most developed Educational systems of Europe and North America?’ Well, I believe that the answer to that lies what Clayton M. Christensen of the Harvard University Business School, calls ‘Disruptive Innovations’ - i.e. innovations which transform the entire form of organization and management of established institutions. Christensen argues that one of the characterististics of ‘Disruptive Innovations’ is that that they ‘originate in Low-End and New-Market footholds’ (‘What is Disruptive Innovation?’ HBR December 2015). On this basis, it is more likely that a solution the Learning-Schooling problem should be found in emerging educational market of Dubai than in established settings of the the US or the UK independent sectors. 

Lessons from Dubai 

The traditional model for schooling around the world was one where education was provided by Governments or by charitable not-for-profit organisations. In the UK, the church and the independent schools, and subsequently the State provided education. No one countenanced the concept of making a money out educating children. Indeed, prior to the recent machinations by the UK Charity Commission, the provision of education was considered an inherent good for the wider benefit of society [a concept in which many of us still believe].
However, Dubai is different. Today 92% of the population are immigrants – economic migrants if you like – who can never be citizens of the UAE. In this context, the State recognizes the need for there to be good schools in order to attract workers to Dubai, but, understandably, sees no reason to provide education for the children of ex-pats free of charge. The consequence has been the growth of the Private School sector. In the early days of the UAE (the nation is only 45 years old) the first schools were founded by the companies working in the country – they were Not-For-Profit following the UK, French or US models. Today 95% of Private Schools in Dubai are For-Profit. The expansion of Dubai is so fast, that the Not-for-Profit sector is not equipped to respond – with the inevitable consequence that the For-Profit sector has filled the void. Market forces play out on the Dubai stage in a way that, I believe, will be a model around the world. So what lessons can we learn For-Profit sector in Dubai? 

The Dubai For-Profit Sector 

The For-Profit sector in Dubai, unsurprisingly is driven by the economic drivers of ‘return-on-investment’, ‘economies of scale’, scalability, differentiated markets and keeping costs down – especially of staffing. However, there are three important characteristics of the For-Profit sector that, I believe, will shape global schooling in the future: 

1. The For-Profit groups offer education at different price points: The For-Profit groups offer Premium, Mid-range and Budget in the same way that airlines offer First Class, Business and Economy seats on their planes. The differentiators between the price points are school and class size, the range of facilities available in the school, the qualifications of teachers, and the amount of teacher-pupil contact time in the week. 
2. The For-Profit Groups invest in central I.T. systems: Nord Anglia have developed the Nord Anglia University as a global CPD portal for teachers. GEMS have developed a share VLE for their schools and have introduced ‘blended learning’ programmes which have moved the process of teaching and learning away from the traditional model of a teacher standing in front of a class.
3. The For-Profit Group invest in top talent for key leadership roles: GEMS have attracted top educationalists from around the world to drive their educational and IT learning strategies.

Looking into the Crystal Ball – Five Prophecies for the Future of Schooling 

So if we apply the principles of Dubai’s For-Profit sector to the global Learning-School problem, what solutions might we see? 

1. Education For-Profit will become the norm around the world. Not-for-Profit education is not equipped to meet the global demand for education, the inevitable consequence is that the For-Profit sector will fill the void. 

2. Being taught by a specialist teacher in a classroom at Secondary level will be a luxury. Technology won’t replace teachers everywhere – but it will in many places. In the future, it will only be Premium Secondary Education that will be delivered by specialist teachers in classrooms drawing on a range of real and virtual resources. Budget Secondary Education will not have subject teachers, but will be delivered totally through online courses on learning platforms. However, for many young people around the world this will be better than the present situation of receiving no education at all. Mid-Range Secondary Education will be delivered by “super-teachers” via Virtual-Reality Conferencing. The For-Profit will invest in new technologies in order to maximise the impact of teachers. 

3. Virtual Reality Teaching will be the disruptor of Secondary education. We also already have ‘Virtual Teaching’ through video conferencing which enables pupils around the world to be taught live by a remote teacher. Furthermore, ‘Virtual Reality’ already enables pupils to travel through time and space – to experience the ancient Colosseum in Rome, life in the trenches or a World-War One dog-fight with the Red Baron. Once these two technologies are combined so that we have ‘Virtual Reality Teaching’, it will be possible for a pupil can put on a headset and ‘feel’ as if they are in a real classroom with a world-class teacher, or be taken on a virtual school visit to any place in time and space. 

“After Games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world, or consulting a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on your goggles at home.” Mark Zuckerberg

4. There will be ‘superstar teachers’ commanding very high salaries. One of the consequences of the rise of Virtual Reality Teaching is that there will be the rise of superstar teachers. The For-Profit sector has a proven record of investing in talent where it can made wider savings. It will inevitably pay to attract top talent, particularly in shortage subjects and their global educational networks will provide a platform which will enable great Virtual Reality teachers will be able to reach millions of students. These teachers will inevitably be very well paid and, given the nature of the C21, it is likely that they will be famous and become celebrities.

Humanoid 'Nao' robots Manufactured by
Aldebaran are being trialled
in S. Australia

5. Primary Teachers will be assisted by Robots. Young children at a formative stage of development need human interaction to shape their learning, thus it is highly unlikely that it will ever be possible to replace teachers in primary schools with technological solutions. One consequence of the predictions for secondary education outlined above is that primary schooling will need to teach the skills to enable young people to access non-classroom based forms of education. It is quite possible that robots will replace Teaching Assistants, performing basic instructive tasks such as teaching basic mathematics and listening to children read. 

Final Thoughts on the Future of Schooling

Prophecy is more about reading the signs of the time and working out a likely a future position from the direction of travel, rather than predicting the future receiving some dislocated revelation from on high.  Prophets are rarely popular because they are usually delivering a message that people don't want to hear. I believe that the signs for a possible future of schooling are there for all to see.
In an ideal world every child in the world would receive the quality of education that is available at Eton, or Phillips Exeter Academy (or even at Dubai College or JESS for that matter) but that isn’t going to happen. The reality is that there is inequality of educational provision in the world and that that is very unlikely to change.  
The challenge to every true educationalist is how that we can give every child the opportunity to have at least some form of basic education. Ideally, Governments supported by the Not-for-Profit sector would provide the solution because I believe that we have to be very careful about how we make money out of something as fundamental as the provision of a child’s education. Sadly, the global political will to achieve this is absent. Thus my hope is, as Diamandis and Kotler argue in Abundance, that the combination of new technologies and billionaire philanthropy will change the world. Unless that happens the approach taken by the For-Profit Sector in the UAE is likely fill the void and that stands as a warning to us all.