Revolution 4 0: challenges for education, productivity and employment

Are we, as workers, prepared for the market of the future? OECD Deputy Director for Education, Montserrat Gomendio, points out that a large number of today’s jobs will be automated and another high percentage will be transformed, which means that the workers of the future will need to acquire new skills, such as critical thinking, teamwork, problem solving, among others. She also argues that traditional education systems must evolve towards lifelong learning systems so that people can adapt to different contexts. Meanwhile, Orlando Ayala, advisor to the president of Colombia and former global director for emerging markets at Microsoft, points out that the challenge revolves around how to educate the workers of the future and how we will educate those workers who will create jobs in the future. The education system needs to be refocused to adapt to the new situation, as there are three converging vectors that have a lot to do with how we educate the workers of the future: the first is the great speed at which new technologies are emerging; secondly, the divergence of geopolitical and economic models; and finally, demographic phenomena. In his view, the greatest challenge we face is to build an ethical world through education. Claudia Costin, founder and director of the Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, argues that there is a double challenge in Latin America: firstly, learning is not taking place and, secondly, they must prepare people with the necessary skills for the future. It is essential to teach skills such as critical thinking or learning to learn, just as it is essential to make the human aspect important again.