Drucker says that online continuing education is creating a new and distinct educational realm, and it will be the future of education. American educational institutions now have their eye on a global education market that is potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars.In this special feature, we present a summary of Drucker's thoughts on the future of online adult education.
Education is already grabbing a major chunk of the gross national product. The US now spends around $1 trillion on education and training. This number will increase rapidly, but the growth won't be in traditional schools, which currently take about 10% of the GNP (kindergarten through high school, 6%; colleges and universities, 4%). The growth will be in continuing adult education.
Online delivery is the trigger for this growth, but the demand for lifetime education stems from profound changes in society. In simplest terms, people who are already highly educated and high achievers increasingly sense that they are not keeping up.
Men and women in their mid-forties are going back to school because they want and need new ways of looking at things outside of their competencies. They want to learn to see things whole. Many of them are there to reflect on their experiences, to see them in a broader perspective. They need this perspective to cope with today's bewildering technological and economic changes.
Engineers tell me that they need a thorough refresher course in their specialties at least every other year and a "reimmersion" - their word -in the basics at least every four years.
So do millions of other knowledge workers. The market for continuing education is already much bigger than most people realize. A good guess is that it already accounts for 6% of GNP in the US and is rapidly getting there in other developed countries. It is going to get a lot higher.
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This is one of his last article published by Forbes magazine .
Maura Sweeney •
ReplyDeleteA very timely piece - not just for workers in their mid-forties as the article suggests but also for those caught in the squeeze of economic downturns and job eliminations so commonplace today. My thoughts? More education - or, as the piece coins it, "Webucation" - is great when done for the right reasons. My back-up thought is: Buyers Beware. Count the cost and check the credibility of potentially pricey programs that might do more to line professional professors' pockets than raise the future living standards of their aspiring students. Identify and publicize those Webucation experts that help . . .as well as those who don't:) BTW . . I offer my own series to for free at www.maura4u.com