I spent exactly two decades of my life for better education. I’m now realizing that all the education I’ve gotten and am getting is incomplete. I remember those moments, studying for entire nights, mugging in loud voices and memorizing things every morning and evening to pass school exams.
The same experiences recur as we join college. This is not only me; majority of Nepali students have the mindset that if you can mug up, you can pass the exam easily. Our education never lets us think outside the box. Now I realize the value of education I am getting. Education should be a life-changing opportunity for everyone. But our education system ensures we only gain paper knowledge and paper degree, everything paper, but nothing real.
Sometimes I think about the future, somewhere around the 2050s. The real big question came to my mind if all these paper degrees and the traditional ways of sharing education are going to change something for a better tomorrow. Is the same way of expressing education going to change our life? Absolutely not! We need Education 4.0 now.
Education 4.0 is the improvement of digital competencies across all levels, and to increase the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. It will change the reading and learning habits. This education enhances us impressively and we can be able to meet the knowledge and skills requirements for tomorrow. This education will be something very unique where we can access from anywhere anytime. We can think why/where instead of what/how. This education evaluates us and not only examine. Countries like Nepal must need to adopt this education culture.
Regulation of private education essential: Minister Poudel
The history of Education 1.0 begins in the early 19th century that experienced memorization; Education 2.0 Internet-enabled learning was introduced in the mid-19th century. Education 3.0 dealt with Consuming and Producing knowledge in the 20th century. The education we need now is Education 4.0: Empowering education to produce innovation. The big question arises why we need Education 4.0? So, I compiled some reasons:
• Students will have more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. eLearning, eLibrary, and other tools facilitate opportunities wherever they are.
• Students will learn from their own study tools. They are free to design learning materials by themselves as per their capacity and ability. This means those students who experience difficulties in any subject will get an opportunity to practice more until they achieve the required levels. Thus, teachers will able to see the improvement areas and guide the students accordingly.
• Students will experience ‘Learning by Doing’. They will have many opportunities to learn how to apply their skills in a variety of situations. They will get adequate project-based learning which equally helps them to learn about organizational, collaborative, and time management skills.
• Education 4.0 enables students to adopt real-world skills that are representative of their jobs. This means curriculum will be designed in such a way that it creates more room for students to fulfill internships, monitoring projects and workout on project-based activities.
• Students will get an opportunity to build logical mindsets. The interesting part is that they will have statistical analysis, analyses data and predict future trends, applying their theoretical knowledge into numbers and reasoning.
• Education 4.0 changes the traditional ways of taking exams. Students are not examined for their memorization capacity. They are tested in real-time according to their performance when they work on projects in the field.
In the current scenario of Nepal, it might sound like a challenging task but it's possible. The government, education specialists and various think-tanks should come under the same roof and hold the promise to work accordingly. They should work as a catalyst to implement Education 4.0 for Nepal. This is the next big opportunity of empowering young talented minds to develop a fuller array of competencies, skills, and knowledge and of unleashing their creative potential. Then only we can imagine a better and innovative Nepal.
