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? 

The COBIS Future of Schooling Debate

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

Three Reasons why Schools and Parents are not nurturing a generation of Entrepreneurs:

A journalist contacted me last week to ask if I thought that schools should teach enterprise and entrepreneurship: How important is it? Is it a good idea? Is it realistic for teachers to try to teach it? and, if so, how far should we go?  Is there a danger that it could overshadow traditional subjects? The questions were framed in a way that suggested that, whilst attending various carol services and nativity plays, I had missed a pronouncement from the Secretary of State that 'Enterprise and Entrepreneurship' was to be the next candidate for inclusion in the Gove/National Curriculum. The questions posed struck a chord. They open up the important debate about how both school and home are bringing up this generation, and how this will impact on their ability to cope in the world of work . . . .

Qualities of the Entrepreneur

Three of the most important qualities of enterprise and entrepreneurship are arguably:

1. the ability to take risks; 
2. the ability to pick yourself up when things go wrong; and
3. the ability to make connections and approach a problem in a novel way.

Unfortunately, today these are alien concepts. Here are three reasons why I believe that the implicit messages that parents and schools are sending to young people foster quite the opposite values.

"Have you got a risk assessment for that?"

Think of your fondest childhood memory - I wager it was outside, and that was away from the supervision of adults. Chances are that your mother sent you out to play saying "Don't come back till tea time." Mine did - most did. Looking back on my childhood, it's amazing that I'm alive. We went off to play in the way that boys did - we climbed trees, we broke into condemned buildings that had collapsing floors, I explored all the loft spaces of the house, went on all-day bike rides, and so on. Undoubtedly it was dangerous - but we learned to take and manage risks. Children don't do that anymore. Their idea of danger is served up by Alton Towers:  it's scary, but fundamentally it's safe - you think that your going to Oblivion, but really you know that you'll get to queue up for the next ride.

The same goes for travel - so few pupils walk or even ride a bike to school. Most are chauffeured by parents everywhere - even to be dropped off to catch the School bus.  Few ever use public transport and most can't even read a railway or bus timetable, let alone plan a long distance journey. In contrast, I walked three-quarters of a mile to catch a train to school each morning (sometimes carrying a 'cello!) When I was 13 I was put on a train at Chelmsford and expected to get myself  to Valenciennes in north west France by train and ferry (operating for a part in my schoolboy French) to stay with my pen-friend. Unthinkable today - and all the more so when one thinks that we grew up in a world without mobile phones. It was a different world - but I'm not convinced that it was any more dangerous.

There is little doubt that we have become overprotective of our children, that they gain independence later (helicopter parents at University!) and that they are far less skilled at managing risk. If this is the case, how can we really expect this generation of young people to show enterprise and take the risks needed by entrepreneurs if on a daily basis they remain wrapped up in cotton wool?

"Practically Perfect in Every Way"

There is a growing culture in independent schools and amongst fee-paying parents that a B or a C grade is a failure. There are two factors driving this. First, A-level grade inflation means that top universities find it increasingly difficult to discriminate between candidates. In a world where significant numbers of pupils have A* and A grades - anything less and your chances of getting into a top 10 university goes out of the window. Secondly, School league tables (and therefore a schools' academic standings) are determined by the percentage of A*+A. 

The consequence of this is that young people are expected to be "practically perfect in every way" - or at least to have a perfect academic record. There is no doubt that young people are under much greater pressure to perform at a high level than we were at school:  last summer the vast majority of Berkhamsted Sixth held and made university offers in excess of ABB  - pressure reserved only for the most prestigious courses in the 1980s.

Perhaps the most bizarre unintended consequences of the "A-grade = Pass culture" is that children are no longer allowed to fail. Parents are increasingly vocal as soon as a grade drops below an A. Let me illustrate:

When an essay set early in the AS course is marked at a B or C grade, it is not uncommon for a parent to contact the school to ask why their child has dropped a grade. ["It has been very upsetting for her."]  It does not take long before the accusation that "The teacher clearly hasn't taught them properly!" is levelled. When it is explained to the parent that few experienced teachers would expect a pupil in their first weeks of the Lower Sixth to be writing at A grade standard [because it takes time to develop a mature essay writing style and that the transition from GCSE to A-level is not an easy one] a typical parental repost is along the lines of  "Well, your expectations should be higher, Mr Steed" or "Why set a task when they can't get an A grade?"

Something has been lost here. Getting a B or a C grade has always been a normal part of the learning process. B or a C grades should indicate that a pupil has reached a certain standard, but that there is more work to do. Yet in our "practically perfect" culture, any deviation from an A grade is seen as an aberration that in some way damages the young person's self esteem. 

Learning to cope with failure and disappointment is an important part of life and schools have a fundamental part to play in this. How a young person reacts to getting a B or a C grade is important: "What do I need to do to get an A grade?" "Where did I go wrong?" "What does an A grade essay look like?"  There the  is a real danger that we are creating a generation of young people who lack the basic resilience that is fundamental to success in the world of work - let alone embarking on a career as an entrepreneur.

"We are breading a generation of accountants, not entrepreneurs." 

There was a time when I started teaching when we all knew what an A grade essay looked like - it was sometimes difficult to put your finger on why, but we all knew one when we saw one. We knew for the same reasons that Oxbridge dons 'know' what a First looks like (or indeed an Beta+? for that matter) - because it had been passed down through the generations with professional rigour and pride. The old system could accommodate those with flair, it could accommodate the maverick. That was all part of the fun. Teachers would encourage the bright pupil to take a different angle or to make the quirky connection, knowing that she would be rewarded for doing so. Today flair is an alien concept to examiners: the mark schemes are so rigid that we only reward the careful. The consequence is that the bright pupil has the maverick beaten out of him. Flair has become a vice. Making quirky connections a menace. We have an A-level system that is breading a generation of accountants: they are reliable, they are careful, they don't make mistakes and they get the job done - they are trained to think in the same way. Consequently most bright pupils don't have an entrepreneurial bone in their body.

Final Thoughts

I'm sure that it would be very good for the country if more young people were to go out into the world to become Entrepreneurs. However, I don't think that 'enterprise and entrepreneurship' can be taught in a classroom - indeed the key skills are best taught outside of the classroom.

1. Risk:  "We expose young people to risk in controlled situations" (Duncan Hardy, Director of Outdoor Education at Berkhamsted). Young people need to learn to take and manage risk. Some of the most important things that we do at school are the most dangerous: the rock climbing club, the CCF survival weekends, Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions and so on - these activities teach young people a whole range of important skills and give them "character-forming" experiences that will shape them for life. They should be a fundamental part of every child's education.
2. Failure is a great teacher:  "Life isn't fair - get used to it."  Young people need to learn how to cope with disappointment and failure. Resilience is a vital life skill that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks. We need to let young people fail, if they are to succeed.
3. In Praise of the B grade:  We all need to see ourselves as "work-in-progress" - we are never "the finished article": to think of ourselves as A* is hubris.
4. Encourage the maverick:  We need people who can see problems from different angles. We need to value people who can make connections. We need to encourage intellectual risk-taking.  In terms of the examination system, this will never be possible if we continue on the path to tick-box examining.