Change is difficult! Change is often scary and divisive! Yet change is inevitable and required for progress. As education systems around the world drive to transform and improve learning outcomes, we must recognize that the significant and impactful changes are already taking place. Everything from our students, their views on world situation and effect have changed. The way they learn, create and share their views all have transformed. The workplaces and skills needed to fuel growth have also changed. Unfortunately, our education system is still struggling to make itself adaptable to change.

Today the fast changing pace has posed a real challenge to the education system. No country wants to do away with students having skills and qualifications for jobs that may no longer exist. So our focus has shifted to equipping young people with future-ready skills for jobs that are yet to be invented and innovated. Many consultancy firms and research organizations are trying to analyze the skills required for future. Researches suggest that they will require more cognitive, social and emotional skills. In simple terms our students will need the resilience to navigate to an increasingly dynamic world. They will need to be more creative and innovative in solving problems and be agile and capable of re-imagining products and services in line with technological advances.

Digital transformation is an indisputable force revolutionizing our industries, reinventing our products, redefining our services and reshaping the way we work. The impact is so dramatic that Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has dubbed it as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Today’s students will enter this very different world. So how do we prepare them for it?

We can do it keeping in mind the 5 E’s:

Envision Enable, Engage, Educate and Empower are the new transformation keys. We have to explore how today’s educators inculcate these attributes amongst the young minds to prepare them for future. Across all ecosystems the role of educators to envision, engage, enable, educate and empower students through the use of these emerging technologies are trending.

This theme provides an inspiration and a vision for educators by gaining insights from thought leaders to align stakeholders with modern educational thinking. It will also help in the form of roadmaps and checklists, as well as recommendations on using technology to teach the future-ready skills that are so vital for our young minds resulting in the success and growth of any nation.