As automation transforms the workplace, former UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar stresses the importance of cultivating skills like judgement, creativity, and ethical reasoning to prepare the future workforce for success.
Rapid changes are happening in the work sphere today with automation of routine tasks, and there is a need to focus on skills such as judgement, creativity and ethical reasoning, former UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said on Saturday.
Kumar made the comments during a discussion on "Knowledge as Power" at the two-day "Bharati Naari to Narayani: National Convention of Women Thought Leaders" organised by Rashtriya Sevika Samiti.
"There are rapid changes happening in three spheres. The first one is knowledge. There is enormous information now available to all of us. The challenge for us is how do we transform this information into useful knowledge so that it will guide us in our judgment and action. And that is possible only when our youngsters develop the ability to question, think critically, and explain what they observe," Kumar said.
"The other area where rapid changes are happening is in the work sphere. Because many of the routine tasks will be automated, we have to now focus on higher-order skills such as judgment, creativity, domain knowledge, ethical reasoning, and the ability to work in teams," he said.
Kumar, who has also served as JNU Vice Chancellor previously, noted that the third area where rapid changes are happening is the power sphere.
"Today, only those countries which control the computing, data and models shape the markets, the culture and society. Therefore, the challenge for us is how do we train and educate our youngsters, especially the women of our country, so that they develop the abilities to succeed," he said.
Kumar noted that the first challenge is to address the issue of dropouts from the schooling system and the higher education system, and to ensure that more females and women become part of our educational system.
"The second is how do we design curriculum to enable our students to become critical thinkers, doers and dreamers and this is where when we say education it has to be holistic education, education is not getting degrees, it is gaining competencies with evidence, so how do you introduce skills and competencies as part of our educational system and when we do all this by 2047, how do we make all our female students and women so successful by 2047," he added.