E-Paper
Reimagining education is key to future of work
We need disciplines to interact with each other for the renovation of institutions, departments, and to ensure holistic and future-ready education for students
The world is being re-imagined. We are seeing a wave of new technologies, an increased focus on skills and how we work, and career paths that are plural, non-linear, and constantly shifting. The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly unquestionable. The Global AI Jobs Barometer 2025, released by PwC, reveals that industries that are more exposed to AI have three times higher growth in revenue per employee, with accelerated overall growth.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) underscores this trend: By 2030, the fastest-growing jobs will be “big data specialists”, “fintech engineers”, and “AI and machine learning specialists”. Skill sets too are evolving at breakneck speed; in jobs that are more exposed to AI, the skills employers want today are changing 66% faster, with a strong emphasis on AI and technology literacy, and cyber skills.
The focus on AI and technology at work is clear, and rightly so, given their dramatic effects — initially overwhelming but gradually positive — on productivity and efficiency levels across roles and the nature of jobs within an organisation.
In such an age of machine intelligence and automated assistants, it gets easy to overlook the degree (and quality) of human collaboration with technology that enables the “outputs” that we find impressive and useful. AI is not simply automating routine tasks and becoming a default personal assistant, it is also amplifying our distinctly human abilities to think, ideate, and solve problems.
According to WEF, analytical thinking, resilience, flexibility and agility, and leadership and social influence top the core skills needed for the workplace today. These are what people call soft — or durable skills — that are foundational to being human. And, this is fascinating: because while technology and digital agility are anchoring the attraction of talent and skill set by employers, these new-age skills help us achieve desired outcomes, when individuals with such skills are able to think critically and creatively, with the right judgment of context and situational sensitivities. As human beings, we imagine, exercise curiosity, and engage with the world and all its excitement and frustrations; we do this with both text and subtext that often transcend what we typically write in our prompts to AI.
Let us ask ourselves: Can AI dream? To what extent can it picture a future reality for us while it gets trained on certain historical and current data? Such critical questions must be asked because the reasons why we take up jobs and engage in work go beyond ticking off routine tasks, producing models, or summarising reports. We work to be able to fulfil essential needs, meet our ends, achieve stability, self-sufficiency, discover our passions, socialise, learn about the world we live in, contribute to our environment, influence lives, and much more. And, these are deeply human intentions and desires. While AI and technology may not dream, they are indeed helping us dream and extend our imaginations. They are helping us expand our thinking and our view of the world with vast amounts of information and insights. They are also enabling intersections of interests, ideas, and disciplines. This is the future of work, where AI and technology, in close companionship with human skills and our ever-expanding interests, are leading to new possibilities for work and innovation.
History tells us that every new technology revolution brings with it certain anxieties concerning job loss, transformation of roles, and the need for skill evolution. So, the worries with AI are not entirely new — although the resultant shifts will be a lot more pronounced given its massive scale and reach. Yet, at its core, it is set to fundamentally enhance the way we work and pursue our interests.
A question thus arises: How ready are the young minds of the country to embrace this? India’s universities face an unprecedented responsibility here. Strict departmental silos, traditional classrooms, and other existing structures of narrow focus will not get us there. We need disciplines to interact with each other — both for structural renovation of institutions and departments as well as for ensuring holistic, multidisciplinary, and future-ready education for students. Similarly, while research in universities is often measured by publication counts, there is a growing need for relevant, impact-focused research that helps address pressing societal challenges and supports collaborations across disciplines and with industries.
These expectations can’t be realised as mere co-curricular pursuits; instead, they must form the core of what and how students learn. For decades, rote learning and high-intensity, competitive entrance exams have shaped Indian higher education, often limiting curiosity and critical thinking in students. A moderated shift towards just-in-time learning and pedagogical innovations, centred on inquiry and exploration, as encouraged in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, can lay the ground for how we live and work in a world of rapid changes. The implications of the intersections among the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences need to emerge from learning ecosystems that foster interdisciplinary knowledge systems, digital fluency, and a culture of love for learning, rather than being realised only once individuals enter the workforce. While we need to do this for higher education, the foundation of learning begins much earlier. Our children need to be equipped at the earliest level to expand their abilities to think, solve, communicate, learn and relearn.
India is at an inflection point. With a massive young population and growing global ambitions, we have a unique opportunity, which requires a bold new movement to prioritise future-forward education. If we dream of becoming Viksit Bharat, this movement is not optional; it is required.
Ashish Dhawan and Pramath Raj Sinha are founders, Ashoka University. The views expressed are personal
