There’s nothing like a good crisis to get people thinking about fresh possibilities and new beginnings. At the very least, we’ve been warned that there will be a “new normal” and that things will not return to how they were before COVID-19. The impact on schools and children’s learning has been one of the most emotional themes amid the continuing COVID-19 crisis. In light of national lockdowns, most learning institutions in Asia and the rest of the world swiftly resorted to distance learning. As the lockdowns eased, many countries, notably Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, prioritized reopening schools.
Education 4.0, a new paradigm of learning, has been discussed for some time, but COVID-19, like so many other challenges, has become a catalyst for its advancement. Education 4.0 is, at its core, about rethinking education at all levels of a person’s education. It embraces technology-enhanced learning experiences, among other things, to produce graduates who are more empowered and prepared with both the digital and social-emotional abilities that tomorrow’s fast-changing work landscapes will demand.
This shift in thinking about how our younger generation is educated also occurs at a time when many colleges are looking to restructure their structures to reposition themselves as more financially sustainable and future-ready. SEGi University and Colleges’ future promises to be an exciting place, with the ability to study wherever and whenever you choose and engaging learning experiences. With students becoming more comfortable with high-tech software and gadgets when they enter university and universities needing to innovate in a quickly changing world, the rate of change at the higher education institutions is expected to be swift.
Immersive learning will no longer be a luxury, but a requirement. Traditional learning approaches can’t always match the intensity of a physical or virtual learning environment when it comes to stimulating and accelerating learning. The reality of an academic world saturated with increasingly advanced technology has become a reality over the last decade. SEGi College Penang is one example of a learning environment that meets the urgency for educational systems to adapt. The critical education revolution requires its relevance to the fundamental concept of the Industrial Revolution. Education 4.0 will create a wider base of higher-skilled workers and this new type of education aspires to create a deeper link between employers and the educational institution. Thus, SEGi curricula will adapt better to the actual needs of the workplace, for instance, bringing industry into the classroom so that students will have better chances to be employed. Additionally, the transnational education programmes at SEGi are more focused on the research and innovation strategy.
Learning that is centred on the student will be critical. Gone are the days when students had to adhere to rigid timetables and rigid academic bounds. The online class can live-stream and caption quickly, hybrid classes are being held to accommodate students who may not be physically able to join a session. But perhaps the most important thing to remember is that our college is under construction with the new digital era, and education is a critical component of our societies’ progress. We have the potential to reshape our institutions not merely to assure our survival, but also to position our societies in the direction we want them to be, with the foundation and people to offer an exciting new future.
Change is the key to it all. Flexible adaptability to a changing world and agility to change purpose must be at the heart of SEGi University and Colleges design to be resilient. This demands expertise, inventiveness, and the capacity to envision the future for our colleges and our students.