Even before the global pandemic hit, the rise of e-learning has already begun thanks to the advancement of tech. Education investors worldwide realised the benefits and how wide the e-learning market can penetrate which laid a good foundation for the current e-learning trend.

For example, many Chinese national parents sought native English teachers through e-learning websites. These e-learning websites can offer parents and students their demand for learning English from native speakers and connect the supply (native English speaking teacher) to the customers. Such an e-learning model has actually been adopted by many other countries which is why e-learning is also on a rise now. Cheers to the advancement of tech for the convenience and accessibility of education we now have! This would be the way to go for the future of education where learning will never again be restricted by time and space.

Besides, it’s evident that the 21st-century workforce demands fresh graduates that are skill-based and not just knowledge-based. In other words, the employers hope to recruit fresh graduates who are able to search for solutions on their own instead of having those who can only show good test results. The reason being that knowledge learned without application is so much more limited than applied knowledge that’s powerful.

For instance, Zyson Kang, the boy who made Malaysia proud by winning the Junior category of Nasa’s Lunar Loo Challenge. He applied his knowledge of mechanical kinetic concepts to produce a spacesuit toilet. That’s a great example of applying knowledge so that it can be a skill that made an impact. The future workforce expects more soft skills, such as creativity, critical thinking and communication from the employees or entrepreneurs to change the traditional way of work.

This brings us to the next focus where students are no longer learning from the main source but multiple sources. The teacher is no longer their only source of information because, in order to complete the skill-based homework, students would look up information from the internet, books or even by interviewing experts.

Such a learning method and style is decentralising the source of information from a single source with authority (teacher) to multiple sources with credits (other sources). Looking at the current trend of education in Malaysia, there are traces of decentralising of information sources, but it’s yet to be well-established as the acceptance of such learning styles are still low among parents and new to teachers.

However, the future of education globally is moving towards such a direction for good. Students that benefit from different sources of learning would be more versatile and open-minded.