Educators told to transform to keep up with fourth industrial revolution

PETALING JAYA: The education system has to stay relevant by anticipating and supporting competencies needed to keep up with the advancement of the Fourth Industrial Revolution(4IR), said Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Dr Mary Yap Kain Ching.
She said this was crucial as the new revolution, driven by digital technology and innovation, had transformed the way knowledge and information was imparted.
She said acquiring the right teaching and learning process was also crucial in order to support the desired outcomes of 4IR.
"Today, all graduates face a world transformed in technology, in which the Internet, cloud computing, and social media, create different opportunities and challenges for formal education system.
"It is now, more than ever, that we must prepare our graduates to be future-ready and adaptable to the transformation around us," she said when opening the Taylor's 10th Teaching and Learning Conference at Taylor's University, in Subang Jaya, near here, today.
Yap said with the change in the role of educators, where passing on knowledge from teacher to pupil would no longer be the educator's chief goal, they now needed to find strategies that could build and recognise learners as independent and self-benefiting agents, not waiting to be taught, but wanting to be supported.
"We need to rethink the way we are conducting education, keeping in mind the vast changes that have taken place and that will continue to occur in our economy and society in the 21st century," she said. — Bernama