Enhancing the Contribution of Higher Education in Fourth
Enhancing the Contribution of Higher Education in Fourth Industrial Revolution Ndirangu Ngunjiri University of Nairobi
INTRODUCTION • Technology shapes every aspect of our days, from how we navigate our way to work to how we order food, watch television, study, and work. • The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4 IR) often is described as the result of an integration and compounding effects of multiple exponential technologies, such as AI, biotechnologies and nanomaterials. • This can cover a range of changes including: “physical (e. g. intelligent robots, autonomous drones, driverless cars, 3 D printing, and smart sensors), digital (e. g. the internet of things, services, data and even people)
CONT. … • Societal changes from the 4 IR will require higher education to develop greater capacity for ethical and intercultural understanding • White papers describe how the 4 IR will shape the future of education, gender and work • Social and educational transformations from the first three industrial revolutions provides a starting point in our consideration of the potential transformations in higher education arising from the 4 IR.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY • Explores the contribution of higher education in fourth industrial revolution • Understand new approach of enhancing the contribution of higher education in 4 IR • Explore how higher education can develop greater capacity for ethical and intercultural understanding, • Explore some changes in its restructuring in delivering four industrial revolution agenda
METHODOLOGY • The study used the data for the 35 respondents of higher education institutions • Secondary data and diagnostic test was done • Variables included the test of normality and reliability test. • The test of normality showed that data was a little skewed and kurtotic and did not differ significantly from normality
FINDINGS • Universities are emphasizing their role in shaping future technology by being the testbeds for innovation and educating future generations • Higher education place-based is diminishing. Education is being connected to mobile devices through applications in the cloud, nationally and globally, physical boundaries are no longer barriers to education. • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a potentially disruptive innovation. The number is increasing exponentially across the globe, making learning more accessible to people.
CONT. … • Big data and new software systems are streamlining the collation and analysis of complex data, allowing academic researchers to significantly cut down on manual work and human error • Higher education’s institutions has a complex, dialectical and exciting opportunity which can potentially transform society for the better • Universities are making significant contributions to the 4 IR with their work in technological innovation and artificial intelligence • Higher Education institutions are embracing data mining in order to gain better understanding of student performance and deliver
RECOMMENDATIONS • Universities should partner with industries new manufacturing regime enabled by 4 IR technologies such as Internet of Things (Io. T) • Changes to the science and technology curriculum to allow for students to develop in the rapidly emerging areas of genomics, data science, AI, robotics and nanomaterials. • Restructuring of institutions to provide new science programs and departments in emerging interdisciplinary fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology materials and AI • Technological shifts can empower universities to upskill graduates differently, better addressing growing skills gaps caused by aging populations
CONT. … • Higher education needs to recognize the necessity of adapting and scaling up these new 4 IR forms of education rapidly to assure the sustainability of our environment and economy • Open innovation, combination of humans and computers to form distributed systems • Shorten Innovation Cycles
CHALLENGES • Changes in society and education from both industrial revolutions are also difficult to separate from other causes, such as economic cycles and other titanic geopolitical • Risk averse especially in this world of disruptive change • Inequality • Privacy and security
CONCLUSION • The impacts of the emerging 4 IR technology in economic and environmental terms alone will require a drastic reconsideration of the curriculum within higher education • The 4 IR STEM curriculum will need to focus on emerging technologies—robotics, AI, Io. T, nanomaterials, genomics and biotech • The 4 IR will place a premium on intellectual capital and in capacity for collective thought. more studies to be done on the topic so as to establish unknown factors that enhance higher education in fourth industrial revolution
CONT. … • 4 IR education will prepare both students and faculty for leadership roles in a world of rapidly accelerating change, with both technical mastery and a deep awareness of ethical responsibility toward the human condition. • This is the time to ask whether the global higher education community will only react to how the business world is shaping the 4 IR or if it will be among the key players of shaping the Fourth Industrial revolution!
SESSION ENDS ndirangu 001@students. uonbi. ac. ke +254720532905
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