Are Education Institutions Prepared for Digital Disruption?

Peter Hirst, the Associate Dean of Executive Education at MIT Sloan School of Management participates in Risk Roundup to discuss whether “Education Institutions Are Prepared for Digital Disruption?   Introduction For nations: its government, industries, organizations and academia (NGIOA), everything and everyone today can be characterized as digitally disruptive—or, if it is not disruptive yet, it’s only a matter of time before it become so. This “Digital Disruption Vulnerability Concern” from across NGIOA –as to who will disrupt and who will be disrupted, where would the disruption come from and when, and in what format is today’s greatest dilemma for each individual and decision maker across NGIOA. Education faces digital disruption too, as computer code, connected computers, internet and digital connectivity creates new ways of doing things. It is this potential of new way of doing things that has made the once unchallenged “education institutions” vulnerable to disruption and fundamental transformation. There is a growing concern that the education system: its framework, model, institutions, processes and structures are not able to keep up with the growing demands of digital services fit for a digital global age. Now looking at the changes that are already under way, it seems that the imminent digital disruption and fundamental transformation of “Education” is going to be a difficult journey for not only the educational institutions and the industry but also every nation. The colleges, universities, and other educational institutions and their monopoly in the production and sale of education credentials at all levels seem to be collapsing right in front of our eyes. Across nations, we are already witnessing digital technology for free learning in cyberspace (online). “Massive Open Online Courses” that have been rolling out across nations are helping students of all ages, gender and location. Millions of people from all across nations have already started taking benefit from these free “On-Line courses or seminars” and other formats of educational material. There are also reports that some educational institutions have also been in talks to providing institution credentials for finished online courses. This is just the beginning! As new ideas, innovations and new ways of educating, training, learning, coaching and mentoring become available in the coming years; colleges, universities and educational institutions are expected to go through fundamental transformative changes for which they are perhaps not prepared for. As colleges and universities are expected to undergo profound transformational changes, many may not survive in the way they exist today. This is a cause of great concern. The road to digital disruption and fundamental transformation of education will require that each nation take a far-reaching look at their education system: framework, products, operating models, structures, content and other key elements of the industry at all levels-global/national and local. Amidst the social media, mobile technology, analytics, the cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)—the coming together of these technological advances is on its way to disrupting industries. So the question is: * When the role of colleges, universities and educators is changing, how is the education industry preparing for the imminent transformative changes? * What efforts are under way to be prepared and survive the disruption? Technological Disruption According to the information available publicly, it seems that the last technological disruption in education happened more than 5 centuries ago. Since then, the educator’s role, educational institutions structure, education framework and the education industry overall has remained pretty much st...