Education & India - 2035

By Satya Narayanan R, Founder, CL Educate

In some ways, predicting the future is easier than dissecting the past. It cannot get worse than one going wrong. Take this as an example - In the mid-80s, the global telecom giant AT&T hired McKinsey to estimate the growth of mobile phones in the world by the year 2000. McKinsey estimated that there would be over 900,000 mobiles phones in the world. The actual number turned out to be over 109 million, an underestimation by a factor of 120 times!

2035 is too far. Contrast with 1995

Disruptions, inventions, innovations, break-throughs in technology can make the two years separated by two decades look like two different worlds. Perhaps, Unrecognisable by a light year. Take the case of India in 1995 and 2015 just to view the transformation.

Liberalisation was a couple of years old. Cable television was just gaining a foothold. Pagers were yet to come (and go). Mobile telephony, private airlines and Internet were in the embryonic stage. Cars were super luxury, still. India's GER (gross enrolment ratio) from school to college was around 5-6 percent etc,. India was still an agrarian economy (60 percent of GDP). GE was just about setting up her shop to begin the new wave of India entry by Fortune 500 companies. Coke was relaunched a year ago. And yes, Gurgaon, Whitefield and Hitec City were sleepy villages.

Look at India and the world now

India figures in the top three economies by PPP. Asia has regained over 50pc of global GDP after 200 years. New products by global technology giants are launched here along with or even ahead of top US markets. Indian software giants control over 70 percent of the services market. Automobile, technology, biotech, space, fintech, are all happening in India as much as any other place. Core innovations and disruptions have moved to this part of the world. Aadhaar - Jandhan - Digimoney is an unprecedented innovation of that scale in human history.

Roseling, the leading health expert and statistician, predicts that India will be #1 on per capita income basis by the year 2048. That makes for a whopping 60 trillion dollar economy. If that is used as a yardstick, India will be a 35-40 trillion dollar economy by 2035. That is a 20 times growth from our size today. By the way, India's GDP has grown six times in the past 20 years.

What would the world be ?

Every thing will be a smart machine that can not only learn and improve its own knowledge by processing massive amounts of data but also can autonomously connect, communicate and orchestrate with every other thing in the world. This includes your coffee cup and your car tyres too.

In 2035, no individual will own anything. Personal flying machines will be common. Rapid transportations will have come and also made way to teleporting. Travelling long distances for face to face meetings will have become a rarity and for just re-unions. People-driven cars will be in the museums. Ocean cities will have happened. Desalinated water will be on tap. Customised 3D printing will have replaced massive industries. No fossil fuel energy any where. Every home and every person will be energy surplus. Food will be printed on order with the machine ordered mix of proteins, carbs, vitamins etc,. Even Sub-Saharan Africa will have worked their way up on health indices to begin the economic progress much like what Asia achieved in the 1960-90 period.

Education & Innovation - The core enabler

All of these will have happened because of education. Universities, corporations and innovators will have played a great role in this transformation. Various segments of of education itself will have transformed in an unrecognisable way from the way it is consumed today - publishing, assessments, coaching, k12 schools, universities, research services, technology services.

Some of the notable transformations that I see in education and related services are

Teacher-less class

All learning will have got entirely democratised in every sense. Top notch teachers, professors, schools, universities, labs will be available on-demand basis - any time, anywhere. I dare say it will all be free. All revenue and monetisations for all content will be from non-users / non-beneficiaries. What will happen to teachers ? - As in every field of knowledge, they will graduate to solve higher order learning and life goals than delivering pedantic lectures a million times in their life times. Top quality teachers and professors will be reaching millions of learners and earning in millions like rockstar swingers. More about it later. In short, A teacher will play a real GURU and will cease to be a machine!

Biomechanics and bio-feedback led learning

Every learning will be deep-tech driven and personalised to the learner with bio-feedback, neuro-mapped and driven by augmented intelligence. A math-smart student will be distinguished from a math-scared student through bio-feedback and different customised learning path including illustrations, speed, accent, assessments would show up for each learner. The mechanism will diagnose like we measure BP and sugar today.

Language and writing will be extinct

Language will be a non-barrier, entirely. The speaker and the listener (the teacher and the taught) will speak in their best languages and the communication will be real time as if they are speaking the same language. Relevant skills and power of imagining will be at a premium and not writing skills to do well for exams.

All New Careers

six out of the top ten jobs of 2010 did not exist in 2000, as per a research survey. This process will only accelerate. The richest person of 2035 is just about born, perhaps. His invention or innovation is not imagined yet. 99 percent of the most-sought-after jobs of 2035 don't exist today. Many will not have taken birth until 2030!

The Watson - Jeopardy, Deep Blue - Kasparov successes are known to you. Now, the first machine delivered judgement too has happened in a real court of law. Doctors, surgeons, teachers, designers, architects, musicians, artists will have contributed to capturing their intelligences in machines and most of the tasks would be executed by machines. Nothing will be 'brainless' or 'dumb'. These innovations will have solved most of the educational challenges in the remotest part of the world for a fraction of a cost.

Premium careers and education

Imagination and translation of that into a working prototype will be the most sought after skill. All education will bring this into the centre of every educational transaction. Information and knowledge will have become commoditised. Even human insights will have become an auto-learn and auto-upgrade features in everything.

Knowledge services

Asia will have become the knowledge services hub for the world with India and China leading the movement. Every top global corporate and university will have more students, more revenues, more patents, more inventions in India and China than in the US. From the current one university in top 200, India will be home to 15 percent of top universities in the world. Together India and China will have over 50 market share in knowledge creation and inventions patented globally from the current single digit share. Almost all of on-demand education will be delivered from Asia.

Eastern philosophy meets science & technology

Western medicine treats human beings as a body with a brain. Eastern philosophy treat human being as a soul that employs a body as a vehicle. Western medicine treats the body and has remained the predominant practice for centuries now since the Eastern perspectives lacked hard scientific evidences. This will have changed by 2035 and will impact every aspect of life including education.

According to Dr. Eswaran, medical doctor-turned-spirituality-researcher at Harvard, 'spirituality in medicine' is finding a formal place in the medical curriculum in the US. Meditation is the new prescription instead of anti-depressants. Positive mental health is a formal subject now. Formal science acknowledging humans as 'body+something' will trigger a new exploration of health and wellness. Historically, improved health has led to improved education which has led to growth in economy.

GDP vs Gross happiness index

We will have reached the edge of solving the basic challenges of human race such as poverty, education, livelihood. The 21st century problems are likely to be centred around happiness, contentment and joy. It is variously predicted that the richest individuals / institutions of the 21st century will be those who bring contentment to mankind and will be hugely rewarded. While that might take a long while coming, our spiritual leaders are early symbols of solvers of the next generation of massive global challenge - lack of joy and happiness.

In a scientific sense, this will bring about a debate about the continued relevance of GDP as the predominant measure of a nation's well-being. Bhutan's national happiness index might find a sponsor in a thought-leading big nation such as India or China and a new way of rating nations might well have happened!

If that were to happen, the role of a teacher will be more centred around 'centredness'. It will be around 'Life - self discovery -purpose of life - 'who am I ?''