Right Time To Bring About Changes In Higher Education

The importance of higher education is gaining prominence all over the world these days as people are starting to understand the value of a good education. With the job market becoming more and more challenging by the day, students are now queuing up to get college degrees that will help them accelerate their careers.

Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University said that America’s “higher-education” system has hit a high in recent times as citizens now want to take education’s aid to get better jobs and fulfill incomplete dreams. They also want to compete at a global level and a high school graduate or a bachelor’s degree holder cannot do that, they need to be more prepared.

He also said that, people these days want flexible or online education options and opportunities to learn experientially. They also want to expose themselves to global experiences and certain changes need to be made in the higher education system to accommodate the requirements of students. Aoun also noticed how people were concerned about rising costs, competition on a global basis and finding jobs after graduation.

Students these days say that they have fewer job opportunities than their parents’ had.

"I think the single most important thing that higher education has to do is do what it does best, and that is 'think.' Thinking is the essence of what universities have been doing for a thousand years, and as we think, we should be unafraid to disrupt the received wisdom. That's also been a great strength in the advancement of knowledge."

• John Sexton, President of New York University

Sexton also added that higher education must find ways of being innovative and creative. Also, the role technology plays in higher education was brought into the forefront.

"One of the things that has emerged from the use of technology in education is that the questions of what exactly are people learning and how do we assess it has to come to the front and center of how these new courses are constructed. For courses with thousands of people in them, it's not possible to just use the traditional, somewhat ad hoc assessment mechanisms that we've employed in higher education."

• Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera

Higher education has to be modified to meet the needs and changes of the present generation, where time is short and necessities are high. And if certain modifications are not made the higher education won’t be able to help us progress in life.