How will higher education deal with 4IR?

There’s a lot riding on how higher education deals with the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), the biggest challenge it has faced in decades.

If the artificial intelligence (AI) at the heart of 4IR is going to upend the way we live, the way we learn and the way we work, what must universities do to ensure they remain relevant, that they are ahead of the curve and assisting students and societies with the process?

For some, the challenge is seen as preparing students for the job market, which inevitably means guessing what that market will look like.

For others, like Fred Swaniker, a Ghanaian entrepreneur and founder of the African Leadership Academy, it’s seen more broadly in terms of preparation for life. Swaniker told delegates at the 10th annual Reinventing Higher Education conference (organised by Spain’s IE University earlier this year at Brown University in Rhode Island) that universities are knowledge enterprises, not skills enterprises.

"Universities are not designed to provide employees for business," said Swaniker. He believes 10% of employment skills are learnt in the classroom, 20% from work colleagues and 70% on the job. At best, universities can assist students in learning how to learn.

The challenge is not just about what higher education institutions should be teaching but how they should be teaching.

Jean Chambaz, president of Sorbonne University in France, described to delegates a university experience with a mix of traditional on-campus experiences and technology-based learning.

"The university of tomorrow would be a university where you don’t go for three or four years, but for life," said Chambaz, who envisions students doing an initial one or two years at university, going into the workplace and returning occasionally over the years to develop new capacities and skills.

Inevitably the concern is not only about the students. As Brown University provost Richard Locke said: "We as universities have a responsibility not just to our students, but also to the societies in which we are embedded."

Prof Nicola Kleyn, dean of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, introduced a dollop of reality to the African 4IR discussion at a recent AABS (Association of African Business Schools) conference, which will have resonated with SA institutions struggling to keep electricity and water running. "What does it mean to embrace 4IR when we live in a continent where maybe we can argue the first industrial revolution is in place but the second and third aren’t? asked Kleyn. She told the collection of academics from around Africa: "We need to work out what 4IR is and then start mapping out the leadership approach."

Prof Piet Naudé, director of the University of Stellenbosch Business School, which was hosting the AABS event, grappled with the possibility of African countries "leap-frogging" the industrial revolutions. "Based on economic logic and empirical evidence, is it possible to move from a pre-industrial, subsistence agricultural economy to a digital one?"

The difficulty with leap-frogging, as other delegates pointed out, is that it requires powerful leg muscles.

"Do we have the strong institutions necessary for it?" asked one delegate.

The good news for those who are not inclined to hard sciences is that there appears to be widespread agreement on one issue. The soft skills — communication, collaborative, emotional even spiritual — will be in great demand. Any human skills that can’t be algorithmically programmed are expected to score from 4IR.

The not-so-good news is that there seems to be a presumption that the soft-skills experts will have a working knowledge of the technology that is set to dominate our daily lives in a way that no-one is yet clear about.