Back to school, back to the future:

As children return to school, they are going back to the future according to leading ‘futurist’ Ross Dawson.

“Schools will change more inthe next ten years than they have in the last 100 years.

“The Australian education system must transform itself,” says Dawson, chairman of thefuture think-tank Future Exploration Network.

“The world is changing faster than our schools have been, leaving our kids in danger of being left behind when they graduate. Fortunately we are beginning to see real progress.”

Dawson points to six key issues that are fundamentally changing the nature of schools and education.

1. Schools need to prepare children for jobs that don’t even exist today. Jobs are disappearing and being created at an unprecedented pace. Schools must teach children how to learn, not what to learn as they can find that for themselves once they know how.
2. Kids expect great technology at school. Most children today are heading to school expecting to study with useful technology, and teachers who can teach them how to use it.
3. Learning is social. Children will learn and study on social networks with their friends locally and around the world. Collaboration is becoming the heart of the economy, so schooling will shift focus even more on team work rather than individual performance.
4. Teaching will be everywhere. Students already add to – or sometimes replace - their classroom teaching with free online courses. The best teachers will get global audiences. Dawson says there is an American kindergarten teacher who earns over $1 million because they take it global. 
5. Learning will be personalised. Everyone in the classroom learning at the same pace will be something of the past, with customised coursework and personal learning networks helping individuals do their best.
6. School will be exciting and engaging. Kids will leap out of bed keen to get to school if they go to the best institutions that make learning a fun, exciting game, as it can be.