Sometimes I ruminate the future of learning and education and I find some distinct possibilities in the near future. We are now entering a phase of learning disruptions and what mattered most in the past century may be totally out of concern in this era. The below is just a random order listing of my thoughts based on my readings!. Inviting others to add on to the list. 
1. All entrance exams will become redundant. Why would we need entrance tests when multi skilled and individual talents become more important ! So, entrance tests could be replaced by aptitude assessments and interviews by specific universities to induct students matching their areas of research. (That sounds death bell for entrance training centers!)
2. Systematic methods of talent assessments right from school will help a person identify their varied interests and arrive at multiple career options rather than the common careers. Thus we will soon have multi-disciplinary / multi -talented students who turn into professionals who have multiple skillsets.
3. Most of the people will become micro -entrepreneurs who can provide multiple services based on their skillsets. Skills and talent become valuable than educational qualifications
4. Higher Educational qualifications may become ornaments and what matters will be ready to use skill based education . Most of these short term skill education will be conducted by similar experts / small training institutes than big universities. Infact the so called higher education degrees are due to "academic inflation" that has happened in the past few decades and its time to come out of the same.
5. Universities will become places of high cost and only prestigious courses which involve philosophical levels of learning will be dealt by them. Most of the routine programs will become online/ mobile. Professors will become real time practitioners than just mere preachers of theory.
6. Big Schools will become non existent when more and more parents start "micro schooling" for better outcomes. Micro schools are small neighbourhood schools led by one / two facilitators where each child gets individual attention. The Big schools could then become hubs of education where these micro school children visit once a week to utilise the facilities .Same with home schooling.
7. Education will become more and more cost effective by utilising technology like AR , VR , AI , gamification and thereby giving the student the choice of learning from the BEST of faculty anywhere in the world rather than just limiting to what the teacher in his/ her classroom says or knows.
8. Blockchain technology could enable content protection helping educators make money by producing high quality educational content which become piracy protected. Blockchain could also help in sorting student data like certificates to be verified easily and thus reduce all fake certificates / institutions .
9. We are now entering a "Knowledge economy" and how much money one can make depends on how much one can learn and what different subjects one can master. The more diverse knowledge, the more valuable he / she becomes . So, the onus of learning and upgradation will be on the individual unlike the earlier decade where it was the responsibility of the organisation to train the employees.
10. Learning / Mastering a subject could have two components : Process knowledge and Content knowledge. Most of the critical learning of future will be process knowledge . Content knowledge could be gained by implanting a chip into our brain / or by using gadgets which could reproduce such knowledge on click of a button. For eg: Most of the lawyers rely on previous judgements and laws for which they take time to identify the right one. This content could easily be searchable on a click of a button. Where as the lawyer only needs to be present at the court to look at behavioural cues and also follow the procedure of a legal method. Thus, a lawyer will need skills in presentation, knowledge of psychology and legal processes rather than the exact codes . thus, future of learning is developing competencies to handle these requirements rather than rote memorizing of content.
11.Learning could become unstructured and people will engage in deep immersive discussions rather than a curriculum based learning. All routine learning will be converted to online education and what remains will be experience sharing and deep conversations with peer learners / experts in the field. Hence , we may not have teachers / educators /trainers any more. Only learning facilitators who can curate the right content for the learner and yes, provide personalised coaching whenever needed.
12.Most of the educational institutions will become enterprise hubs where students can practice what they learn. Engineering colleges will run engineering companies and MBA colleges run real businesses , journalism colleges will run real magazine. Those courses without real-time working facilities and experiential learning will eventually die off ! This simply means that either educational institutions start enterprises or enterprises start educational institutions . Stand alone system may not work !
As I said in the beginning, the field of learning is undergoing rapid disruption and we are moving much faster than we imagined. All we can wish for is that "All is Well"
Pic: Taken during one of my favorite speaking sessions last year.
