KT UniExpo: How UAE teachers are preparing students for jobs that do not exist

To prepare students for jobs of the future, academicians and teachers in the UAE are creating new learning pathways with a goal of helping the youth become 'agile thinkers'.

Top educators and over 35 universities shared their insights as they came together for the two-day KT UniExpo, which opened at Shangri-La Dubai today.

Speaking at the event, Dr Neil Hopkin, a leading international school principal for Fortes Education in Dubai, said tomorrow’s adults must be ready to navigate through various roles.

“Children, as they move through adult life, will move through different jobs. The world is going to change, we're going to find that the climate becomes absolutely dominant," the principal at Sunmarke School said.

Jobs that do not exist yet — like "carbon vacuuming in the atmosphere" — will suddenly be cropping up, he added.

"There will be things to do with the way that food interacts with global movements — where people are chasing the food or how water level changes are going to impact them. So, there will be many jobs that are required to combat just by looking at the climate situation," Hopkin said.

Schools, he said, need to focus on turning their students not only into problem-solvers but also "problem-finders and problem-seekers".

“We're preparing children for those jobs, but we don't know what the job is. We don't know what the parameters of the job are. What schools have to do is to adjust their thinking and say, ‘this isn't about knowledge, per se’," Hopkin said.

Beyond knowledge and skills, it is "understanding" that will be crucial, he added.

"Skills are going to change. Some of the skills will just simply evaporate because they're no longer required. Other skills will be required that we can't even imagine yet. What remains is the child and the adult's ability to understand how to deploy the skill, how to problem-solve, how to interrogate a particular set of data, and to make sense of that so that you can implement this new novel approach to this new novel problem that they face,” Hopkin said.

Students optimistic about the future

Despite the uncertainty that emerges from a rapidly changing world, students remain optimistic about the future and the new-age industries, experts said.

Students today have learnt to look at challenges from a fresh perspective with better situational and social awareness.

Nargish Khambatta, principal of GEMS Modern Academy and vice-president for education at GEMS Education, said: “Since you don't know what tomorrow holds, to be prepared for the unknown is actually quite frightening for the children. But I think they feel well prepared only because they're such ‘agile thinkers'.

"I think they are building skill sets and educators are doing a fabulous job building skill sets that are not aligned to jobs."

Earlier, learning has been geared towards jobs. Now, since the jobs of the future do not exist yet, students are learning a "completely different skill set", Khambatta said.

"They're being agile, they understand the importance of decision-making, being future-focused, can think on their feet. They are critical thinkers and problem solvers.”

How to choose the 'perfect university'

During a panel discussion, educationists — like Mohana Kelekar, manager for sales and customer relations; Paul Kelly, head of secondary at Sunmarke School; and Jonathan Cox, head of secondary school at Raffles World Academy — also debated on the different factors involved in ‘selecting the perfect university’.

They highlighted a long-standing discussion among students: Which qualification is better, a professional or an academic degree? One that will equip students with a clearly defined set of skills or one that will add a broad transferable set of skills?

Cox said: “There are colleges that will give you a pure academic degree and I think you need to decide as students. All parents or children need to decide, do they want a purely academic outlet? Do they want to go to those academic ivory towers and be immersed in that or do they want something where they are actually getting their hands a bit dirty and there is a more practical application.”

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