I work in colleges and universities, and my vision for the future development of colleges and universities is as follows:
First of all, I think traditional universities will face profound internal changes.
For example, the size of physical universities will continue to shrink, some universities will close down, some universities will be demolished, and resources will be reorganized around majors. Accordingly, some comprehensive universities will "shrink" and cut off majors that are not their own strengths, but there are other schools in the region that are more professional. The definition of teachers' performance will be broader than today. Teachers writing novels, translating and even publishing influential articles on the Internet, or forming a developed online community, which has contributed to a certain social impact, will be regarded as contributions and achievements, not just academic papers and academic works.
Second, there are more and more transnational schools.
Even now, more and more universities are setting up multinational schools, such as nyu shanghai, Duke Kunshan University and unnc. However, the shortage is that resources are scattered and fragmented, and there is worry about repeated construction. I believe that there will be some educational concessions and educational "special zones" in the future. The Qatari government has done a good job in this regard. They set up an "Education City" in Doha, which attracted the participation of virginia commonwealth university, Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Texas A&M University in Qatar, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Diplomatic Academy of Georgetown University in Qatar, Northwest University in Qatar, HEC in Paris, UCL Qatar in London and other famous European and American universities. In the next fifteen years, there will be more such university towns all over the world and some resources will be shared. Global education will be a deep integration of you and me, just like today's global economy.
Third, some universities will be dynamically integrated with the industry or regional economy, and some universities will be transformed into work-study schools.
This combination does not necessarily occur in megacities with abundant educational resources, but in small and medium-sized cities with insufficient resources but important industrial bases. These schools will promote some innovations in teaching methods, and it will become normal for work and study to feed back each other. Some time ago, China reported a lot about the "deep springs college" in the California desert. Deep springs college is an extreme case of this kind of work-study school, and many people doubt whether this model can be expanded. In fact, there are some colleges and universities in the United States, which are not as extreme as those in deep springs college-as few as 20 or 30 students, which is almost negligible. For example, Berea College in Kentucky and Ozarks College in Missouri are both regular universities, similar in scale to other small liberal arts colleges, but they operate in the mode of "Work Colleges", where students have jobs and many people rely on the local economy. Missouri, for example, has the famous Branson Resort and Entertainment City. Students don't have to pay any tuition fees because they have to work. They have been operating in this mode for quite a long time, and I believe their exploration will give many inspirations to future universities.
Fourth, students' autonomous learning will become a normal state.
Autonomous learning based on technology platform will force the academic system of universities to be more flexible. Learning can be "mass customized" by means of science and technology, especially the ubiquitous mobile technology. In the past, we said that "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" is actually difficult to achieve, because many schools usually do not have the financial strength to meet the specific needs of students one by one. More often, universities operate in the way of "mass production" in the industrial age. However, due to the development of educational technology, personalized learning is easier to achieve. Students don't necessarily have to follow the same pace. The strict division of the past year may be broken, and there will be more and more loose "queues" among students. Students in the study group may start school together, but because of the different progress, everyone will finish their studies at different times.
Because personalized learning is easier, some universities may become like movie rental websites (such as Netflix), paying monthly fees and watching them at any time. You can pay by semester and take as many courses as you want, as long as you can afford it. At the same time, people can study in different universities and use credits to save a degree. This will make the academic system less important and give people a variety of channels and methods to receive formal education. With the complexity of education, a large number of third-party institutions and intermediaries will emerge in the education sector, providing learning certification, consulting and other services, and there will also be many education brokers who are not attached to specific schools, which will be full of business opportunities.
Fifth, I think there will be a breakthrough in online education
Some network universities that were despised in the past will suddenly emerge and grow up because of their more reasonable mode and more effective cost. A number of so-called diploma workshops will die out, but among the remaining online schools and online educational institutions, it is believed that they will fly out of golden phoenix. Online education is a hot industry in China and a sunrise industry. This situation will last for many years.
I believe that the proportion of virtual campuses in primary and secondary schools will also increase significantly. University enrollment and running schools are mostly combined with these virtual campuses. For example, students can take some courses recognized by universities and high schools through these virtual campuses in high school. Some high schools that are closely integrated with colleges and universities will no longer rely on the national unified examination for college admission. However, the development of online education does not mean that traditional learning and online learning will eat anyone. The mainstream way of learning is not necessarily brick and cement school learning, nor is it necessarily online learning under the mouse touch screen environment. Maybe blended learning will play a leading role. In addition, the popular massive open online courses will also play a role in the future, just like today's RTVU, but they will not become the main body of formal education.
Nowadays, there are many criticisms about higher education in colleges and universities, but many criticisms are confined to criticism, and everyone spits out and finally goes away. The key to this anticlimactic situation is the lack of imagination of the ideal situation, and all discussions are based on the status quo. I'm just here to attract jade. Welcome to criticize or supplement. I also hope that everyone will go beyond the existing educational thinking mode and re-imagine what education should look like. Imagining the future is a very interesting and valuable activity. I want to use the platform of this conference to challenge everyone to think about future education together. Looking forward to the future of future generations will certainly add strength to each of us today.